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Section
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THE
SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA
riUSTTED BY
SFOTTISWOODE AND CO., NKW-STBKET SQUARE
LONDON
- ....... » Pi -„«
MAY 1" 1915
COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLES
TO THE
SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA
REVELATION II. Ill
BY •
RICHARD CHENEVIX TRENCH, D.D.
ARCHBISHOP
FOURTH EDITION, REVISED
LONDON
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, & CO., 1 PATERNOSTER SQUARE
1886
[The rights of translation and of reproduction are reserved)
PREFACE.
In publishing this volume I at length accomplish, how-
ever imperfectly, a wish which I have cherished for many
years. During the time that I fulfilled my pleasant
labours at King's College, I lectured three times to the
theological students there on these seven Epistles ; and
the lectures to them delivered constitute the groundwork
of the present volume, though much has been added, and
some little changed, in the final revision which I have
given to my work before venturing to challenge a larger
audience for it. I confess that each time I have gone
over these Epistles I have become more conscious of the
manifold difficulties which they present ; and more than
once have been half disposed not to offer to others, in the
way of interpretation of them, what has so little satisfied
myself. I have not, however, held my hand. There has
ever seemed to me a very useful warning contained in
that German proverb which says, * The best is oftentimes
the enemy of the good ; ' and, without claiming for an
instant that title of good for my book, I do not doubt that
VI PREFACE.
many a good book has remained unwritten, or, perhaps,
being written, has remained unpublished, because there
floated before the mind's eye of the author, or possible
author, the ideal of a better or a best, which has put him
out of all conceit with his good ; meanwhile some other,
having no ideal at all before him, either to stimulate or
to repress, steps in and poorly fills the place which the
other would have filled, if not excellently, yet reasonably,
well.
But indeed, if there is much in the difficulties with
which these Epistles abound to repel and deter, there is
much also in these same difficulties to allure and attract.
And not in these only. The number of aspects in which
they present themselves to us as full of interest is extra-
ordinary.
For example, the points of peculiar attraction which
they offer to the student of ecclesiastical history are
many. Who are these Angels of the Churches? What
do we learn from their evident preeminence in their
several Churches, about the government and constitution
of the Church in the later apostolic times ? or is it lawful
to draw any conclusions? Again, was there a body of
heretics actually bearing the name of Nicolaitans in the
times of St. John ? And those that had the doctrine of.
Balaam, and the followers of the woman Jezebel, with
what heretics mentioned elsewhere shall we identify
these ? Or, once more, what is the worth of that
PREFACE. Vii
historico-prophetical scheme of interpretation adopted by
our own Joseph Mede and Henry More, and many others
down even to the present day ; who see in these seven
Epistles the mystery of the whole evolution of the Church
from the days of the Apostles to the close of the present
dispensation ? Was this so intended by the Spirit ? or
is it only a dream and fancy of men ?
Nor less is there a strong attraction in these Epistles
for those who occupy themselves with questions of pure
exegesis, from the fact of so many unsolved, or imper-
fectly solved, problems of interpretation being found in
them. It is seldom within so small a compass that so
many questions to which no answer with perfect confi-
dence can be given, occur. What, for instance, is the
exact meaning, and what the etymology, of ^a\/coXi/3az/os
(i. 15; ii. 18)? what the interpretation of the white
stone with the new name written upon it (ii. 17)? why
is Pergamum called 'Satan's seat' (ii. 13)? with many
other questions of the same kind.
Nor can any one, I think, attentively studying, fail to
be struck with what one might venture to call the entire
originality of these seven Epistles, their entire unlikeness,
in some points at least, to anything else in Scripture.
.Contemplate, for instance, the titles of Christ here, 'the
Amen,' ' the Faithful and True Witness,' ' the Beginning
of the Creation of God,' ' He that hath the seven Spirits
of God,5 and others which I might name. While the
Vlll PREFACE.
analogy of faith is perfectly preserved, while there is no
difficulty in harmonizing what is here taught of Christ's
person and offices with that which is taught elsewhere,
yet how wholly new a series of titles are these. It is the
same with the promises ; some, it is true, as ' the tree of
life,' ' the crown of life,' ' the new name,' have been
anticipated in other parts of Scripture, yet how many
appear here for the first time ; and set forth what
Augustine so grandly calls, ' beatae vitae magna secreta,'
under aspects as novel as they are animating and allur-
ing ; such are ' the hidden manna,' the ' white stone,'
the * white raiment,' the ' pillar in the temple of Grod,'
and * the morning star.' And very striking, as combined
with this originality, with this free movement of the
Spirit here, is the strict and rigid symmetrical arrange-
ment of these Epistles, the way in which they are all
laid out upon the same plan, distributed according to
exactly the same ever-recurring laws. The surprise which
we feel on tracing this for the first time, is similar to
that which overtakes one who, attempting any thing like
a critical study of the Psalms, discovers the rigorous laws
to which, so far as concerns the form, they are for the
most part submitted, or rather, which they have imposed
on themselves, and to which they delight to conform.
Then, once more, the purely theological interest of
these Epistles is great. I have already referred to the
titles of Christ, the entirely novel aspects under which
PREFACE. IX
the glory of the Son of Grod is here set forth. But they
have another and profounder interest. Assuredly there
is enough in these two chapters alone to render Arianism
entirely untenable by any one who, admitting their
authority, should consent to be bound in their interpre-
tation by the ordinary rules of fairness and truth. On
this matter I have several times dwelt in the course of
my interpretation.
And, finally, the practical interest of these Epistles in
their bearing on the whole pastoral and ministerial work
is extreme. It is recorded of the admirable Bengel that
it was his wont above all things to recommend the study
of these Epistles to youthful ministers of Christ's Word
and Sacraments. And indeed to them they are full of
teaching, of the most solemn warning, of the strongest
encouragement. We learn from these Epistles the extent
to which the spiritual condition of a Church is dependent
upon that of its pastors ; the guilt, not merely of teach-
ing, but of allowing, error ; how there may be united
much and real zeal for the form of sound words with a
lamentable decay of the spirit of love ; or, on the other
hand, many works and active ministries of love, with only
too languid a zeal for the truth once delivered; with
innumerable lessons more. For one who has undertaken
the awful ministry of souls, I know almost nothing in
Scripture so searching, no threatenings so alarming, no
promises so comfortable, as are some which these Epistles
contain.
X PREFACE.
Surely, if all this be so, it is very much to be re-
gretted that, while every chapter of every other book of
the New Testament is set forth to be read in the Church,
and, wherever there is daily service, is read in the^Church,
three times in the year, and some, or portions of some,
are read oftener there, while even of the Apocalypse
itself two chapters and portions of others have been
admitted into the calendar, under no circumstances what-
ever can the second and third chapter ever be heard in
the congregation. Any one who knows, or at all guesses,
how small the amount of the private reading of the Scrip-
tures among our people, and the extent, therefore, to
which the stated public reading in the congregation is
the source of whatever knowledge of it the great mass of
our people possess, the means by which they are at all
leavened by it, must deeply regret that chapters so rich
in doctrine, in exhortation, in reproofs, in promises, should
thus be withheld from them. Certainly, if at any time a
reconsideration of the portions of Scripture appointed to
be read in the Church should find place, the slight cast
on these chapters, and in them on the Apocalypse itself,
with the injury inflicted on the people by their total
omission, ought not to be allowed to continue.1
Whether the attempt here made to draw out some of
1 It need hardly be observed, that what I complain of here has
for several years ceased to be the fact. — Note to the fourth edition,
1883.
PREFACE. XI
the riches contained in this portion of God's Word may
have any interest for others, I know not : but for myself
this volume must ever retain a very solemn interest.
Besides the serious solemnity of giving any work that
professes to be a work for God into the hands of men, I
can never disconnect this book from two great sorrows
which fell on me, while it was preparing for, and passing
through, the press ; sorrows which have left me far
poorer than before ; and yet, I would humbly hope, richer
too, if better able to speak to others of truths whose price
and value has been brought home with new power to
myself ; if theology has been thus more closely connected
for me with life, and with life's toil and burden, from
which it is ever in danger of being dissociated and
divorced. It is my earnest hope that so it may prove ;
and in this hope I humbly commend my book, with all
it3 shortcomings, to Him who can alone make it profit-
able to any.
Deanery, Westminster :
July 31, 1861.
CONTENTS.
PAQB
Introduction. Rev. i. 4-20 1
The Seven Epistles. Rev. ii. iii. 71
I. Epistle to the Church of Ephesus. Rev. ii. 1-7 . 74
II. Epistle to the Church of Smyrna. Rev. ii. 8-1 1 . 104
III. Epistle to the Church of Pergamum. Rev. ii. 12-17 • 120
IV. Epistle to the Church of Thyatira. Rev. ii. 18-29 . 143
V. Epistle to the Church of Sardis. Rev. iii. 1-6 . . 161
VI. Epistle to the Church of Philadelphia. Rev. iii. 7-13 180
VII. Epistle to the Church of Laodicea. Rev. iii. 14-22 . 199
Excursus on the Historico-Prophetical Interpretation
of the Epistles to the Seven Churches in Asia . 232
COMMENTAET
EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA.
REVELATION II. III.
Introduction, Eev. i. 4-20.
The question, Wliy we enter the wondrous temple of this
Book by the vestibule of these seven Epistles, what the
exact relation in which they stand to the other parts of
the Apocalypse, has not, within my knowledge, been ever
very satisfactorily answered. So far from receiving an
answer, to most interpreters the question is one which
hardly seems to have so much as presented itself at all.
And yet a thoughtful student of God's Word might here
fitly pause, and reverently inquire why this Book should
have this introduction. We are sure that Scripture, as it
has every other perfection, so it must have the perfection
of form and proportion ; while yet it does not seem very
easy to trace what is the relation here between these
two : — the Book prophetic, the introduction for the most
part historic ; the Book universal in its character, in-
cluding the whole Church in the range of its vision, the
introductory Epistles having to do with separate and
2 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [i. 4.
single Churches, and with the details of their inner
spiritual condition. I will not affirm that Bengel's expla-
nation exhausts the whole matter, but it appears to me
the best which has been offered : ' Gravissima vii. harum
Epistolarum causa est. Populus legem in Sinai suscep-
turus, prius sanctificabatur : idem opera Johannis Baptistse,
cum immineret regnum Dei, per pcenitentiam prsepara-
batur ; nunc Ecclesia Christiana ad tantam Kevelationem
digne suscipiendam his instruitur epistolis. Id enim
agitur ut malos, prius admonitos, et mala ex medio sui
exterminans, ipsa cum sua, posteritate ad hoc pretiosissimum
depositum, hanc tanti momenti revelationem recte amplec-
tendam asservandamque, ad eventus maximos spectandos,
et fructus uberrimos percipiendos, plagasque effugiendas
pra?paretur, inspersis in ipsas epistolas revelationis reliquse
stricturis fulgidissimis, ad attentionem excitandam, et viam
intelligentiae muniendam aptissimis : ecclesiaeque per pceni-
tentiam renovatio, ut par est, conspectui iridis praemittitur '
(iv. 3).
Ver. 4. ' John to the seven Churches l in Asia.'' — So
far as the Apocalypse is allowed to witness for its own
authorship, we find in these words a strong internal .evi-
dence that we possess in it an authentic work of St. John.
The writer avouches himself as ' John ; ' but, though there
may have been Johns many in the Church at this time,
John the Presbyter and others, still it is well-nigh im-
possible to conceive any other but John the Apostle who
would have named himself by this single name, with no
further style or addition. We instinctively feel that for
1 The words, ' which are] finding here a place in most modern
editions of our Authorized Version, have no place in tlie exemplar
edition of 161 1.
I. 4.] INTRODUCTION, REV. I. 4~20. 3
any other there would have been here an affectation of
humility, veiling a most real arrogance, in the very
plainness of this title. Who else, without arrogance, could
have taken for granted that the bare mention of his name
was sufficient to ensure his recognition, or that he had
a right to appropriate this name in so absolute a manner
to himself? The unique position in the Church of St.
John, the beloved Apostle, and now the sole surviving
Apostle, the one remaining link between the faithful of
that time and of the human lifetime of their Lord, abun-
dantly justified in him what would have ill become any
other ; just as a king or queen, as representative persons
in a nation, fitly sign by their Christian names only, but
none beside them. Thus there are many at this day who
bear the name of Victoria, but only one who signs herself
by this and no other name. Despite of all which has been
urged to avoid this conclusion, it is assuredly either John
the Apostle and Evangelist who writes the Apocalypse;
or one who, assuming his title and style, desires to pass
himself off as John — in other words a falsariun. Are the
opposers of St. John's authorship of this Book prepared for
the alternative ?
Of the seven Churches which St. John addresses here
there will be better opportunity of speaking in particular
when we reach the nominal enumeration of them (ver. 11);
but as only here they are described as Churches ' in Asiaf
it may be well to say something of the ' Asia ' which is
intended. We may trace two opposite movements going
on in the names of countries, analogous to like move-
ments which are continually finding place in other words.
Sometimes they grow more and more inclusive, are applied
in their later use to far wider tracts of the earth than
they were in their earlier. It is thus with the name
b 2
4 EriSTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [i. 4.
' Italy.' Designating at one time only the extreme
southern point of the central peninsula of Europe, the
name crept on and up, till in the time of Augustus it
obtained the meaning which it has ever since retained,
including all within the Alps. So too * Germany ' was once
no more than a little corner on the left bank of the lower
Ehine (Grimm, Gesch. der Deutschen Sprache, p. 785).
'France,' 'Burgundy,' 'Switzerland,' 'Holland' are all later
examples of the same gradual expansion of meaning which
names of countries have undergone. Other names, on the
contrary, once of the widest reach, gradually contract their
meaning, till in the end they designate no more than a
minute fraction of that which they designated at the be-
ginning. ' Asia ' furnishes a good example of this. In the
New Testament, as generally in the language of men when
the New Testament was written, ' Asia ' meant not what
it now means for us, and had once meant for the Greeks,
one namely of the three great continents of the old world
(iEschylus, Prom. Vinct. 412; Pindar, Olymp. vii. 18;
Herodotus, iv. 38), nor yet even that region which geo-
graphers about the fourth century of our era began to call
' Asia Minor ; ' but a strip of the western sea-board contain-
ing hardly a third portion of this ( cf. 1 Pet. i. 1 ; Acts ii. 9 ;
vi. 9). ' Asia vestra,' says Cicero (Pro Flacc.27), addressing
some Asiatics, 'constat ex Phrygia, Mysia, Caria, Lydia ; '
its limits being nearly identical with those of the kingdom
which Attalus III. bequeathed (b.c. 133) to the Eoman
people (see Wieseler, Chronol. p. 31-35). Take ' Asia ' in
this sense, and there may be little or no exaggeration in the
words of the Ephesian silversmith, that ' almost through-
out all Asia ' Paul had turned away much people from the
service of idols (Acts xix. 26; cf. ver. 10); words which must
seem to exceed even the limits of an angry hyperbole to
I. 4.] INTRODUCTION, REV. I. /J.-20. 5
those not acquainted with this restricted use of the term.
On the history of the word ' Asia ' and what at different
times it was taken to include or exclude, see an excellent
note in Lee on Rev. i. 4, in the Speaker's Commentary.
' Grace be unto you, and peace, from Him which is
and which ivas, and which is to come' — This opening
salutation may fitly remind us (for in reading the Apoca-
lypse we are often in danger of forgetting it), that the
Book is an Epistle, that, besides containing within its bo-
som those seven briefer Epistles addressed severally to the
seven Churches in particular, it is itself an Epistle addressed
to them as a whole, and as representing in their mystic
unity all the Churches,, or the Church (ii. 7, 11, 23, &c).
Of this larger Epistlef namely the Apocalypse itself, these
seven Churches are the original receivers ; not as having
a nearer or greater interest in it than any other portion of
the Universal Church ; though as members of that Church
they have an interest in it as near and great as can be
conceived (i. 3 ; xxii. 18, 19); but on account of this their
representative character, of which there will be occasion
presently to speak. And being such an Epistle, it opens
with the most frequently recurring apostolic salutation :
1 Grace and peace' This is the constant salutation of St.
Paul (Rom. i. 7 ; 1 Cor. i. 3, &c), with only the exception
of his two Epistles to Timothy, where ' mercy ' finds place
between ' grace and peace ' (cf. 2 John 3) ; the salutation
also of St. Peter in both his Epistles ; while St. James
employs the less distinctively Christian * greeting' (^alpsiv,
i. 1 ; cf. Acts xxiii. 26). — On the departure from the or-
dinary rules of grammar, and apparent violation of them
in the words, airo 6 cov, koI 6 rjv, kcl\ 6 ip-^o/xsvos, there
will presently be something more to say. Doubtless
the immutability of God, ' the same yesterday, and
6 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [1.4.
to-day, and for ever' (Heb. xiii. 8), is intended to be
expressed in this immutability of the name of (rod, in this
absolute resistance to change or even modification which
that name here presents. ' I am the Lord ; I change not '
(Mai. iii. 6), this is what is here declared ; and there could
be no stronger consolation for the faithful than thus to be
reminded that He who is from everlasting to everlasting,
' with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning '
(Jam. i. 17), was on their side; how then should they 'be
afraid of a man that shall die, and the son of man which
shall be made as grass' (Isai. li. 12, 13)?
And yet we must not understand the words, ' and which
is to come,' as though they declared the ' aeternitas a parte
post ' in the same way as * which webs'1 expresses the 'arter-
nitas a parte ante.'' It is difficult to understand how so
many should assume without further question that 6 spx^-
fisvos here is = 6 saofxsvos, and that thus we have the eter-
nity of God expressed here, so far as it can be expressed,
in forms of time : ' He who was, and is, and shall be.'' On
the inadequacy and imperfection of all such language
see Plato, Timceus, 38 A. But how 6 sp^o^evos should
ever have this significance it is hard to perceive. There is
a certain ambiguity about our translation ; it cannot be
accused of incorrectness ; yet, on the other hand, one does
not feel sure that when our Translators rendered, ' ivhich
is to come,'' they did not mean * which is to be.' The
Eheims, which is here kept right by the Vulgate (' et qui
venturus est,s), so renders the words as to exclude ambi-
guity, ' and which shall come.'' If any urge that ' ivhich
is, and vjhich was,' present and past, require to be com-
pleted with a future, ' and which shall be,' to this it may
be replied, that plainly they do not require to be so com-
pleted, seeing that at xi. 17, no such complement finds
I. 4. J INTRODUCTION, REV. I. 4.-20. 7
place ; for the words koI 6 ipx6/j,svo$ have no right to a
place there in the text ; and in strong confirmation of the
other interpretation, they are left out exactly because, ac-
cording to it, they would now be inappropriate ; for He is
there contemplated as actually having come (st\v4>as ttjv
Svva/xtv (tov). And then, on the other hand, there is every
thing to recommend the grammatical interpretation. What
is the key-note to this whole Book ? Surely it is, ' Mara-
natha,' ' Our Lord cometh.' The world seems to have
all things its own way, to kill my servants ; but I come
quickly.' With this announcement the Book begins, i. 7 ;
with this it ends, xxii. 7, 12, 20; and this is a constantly
recurring note through it all, ii. 5, 16; iii. 11 ; vi. 17 ;
xi. 18 ; xiv. 7 ; xvi. 15 ; xviii. 20. It is Christ's word of
comfort, or, where they need it, of warning, to his friends ;
of terror to his foes. We may say, indeed, that in some
sort 6 ip^6/j,svo9 is a proper name of our Lord (Matt. xi. 3 ;
Luke vii. 19, 20; Heb. x. 37 ; John i. 15, 27 ; cf. Mai. iii.
1 ; Hab. ii. 3). Delitzsch : 'Es heisst 6 ip^ofisvos, nicht
iXsuaofisvos, denn seit seiner Auffahrt ist Er und sein Tag
fort und fort im Kommen begriffen, so dass immer von
seiner Nahe die Eede seyn kann, und seine Erscheinung
jederzeit zu erwarten ist.' Origen further notes the evi-
dence which this language, rightly interpreted, yields for
the equal divinity of the Son with the Father (De Princ.
§ 10): ' Ut autem unam et eandem omnipotentiam Patris
ac Filii esse cognoscas, audi hoc modo Joamiem in Apoca-
lypsi dicentem, Hasc dicit Dominus Deus, qui est, et qui
erat, et qui venturus est, Omnipotens. Qui enim venturus
est, quis est alius nisi Christus?' Compare Hengstenberg,
Authentie des Pentateuches, vol. i. pp. 236-250. — There
should be no comma dividing ' which is ' from the clause
following, ' and which was.' These rather form one sen-
8 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [1.4.
tence, which is to be balanced with the other, ' and ivhich
is to come.'' How the Seer himself interprets the last
clause of this description is clear from Kev. ii. 17, where
they find no place in the text (they are omitted rightly in
the R. V.) ; and why omitted ? because they belong to a
time when Christ had already come.
* A nd from the seven Spirits ivhich are before his
throne.' — Compare iii. 1 ; iv. 5 ; v. 6. Some have under-
stood by ' the seven Spirits,' the seven principal Angels, the
heavenly realities of which ' the seven princes of Persia
and Media, which saw the king's face, and which sat the
first in the kingdom' (Esth. i. 14), the 'seven counsellors'
(Ezra vii. 14), were a kind of earthly copy. Room for
these seven Angels had been found in the later Jewish
angelology (Tob. xii. 15), and the seal of allowance set on
the number seven in this very Book (Rev. viii. 2). And
these have not been merely Roman Catholic expositors,
such as Bossuet and Ribera, tempted to this interpretation
by their zeal to find any support for the worshipping of
Angels ; but others with no such temptations, as Beza,
Hammond, Mede (in a sermon on Zech. iv. 10, Works,
1672, p. 40. cf. pp. 833, 908); and Ewald. They claim
some of the Fathers for predecessors in the same line of
interpretation; as Hilary, for example (Tract. in Ps. 118,
Lit. 21, § 5). Clement of Alexandria is also claimed by
Hammond ; but neither in the passage cited, nor in the
context (Strom, vi. 16), can I find that he affirms anything
of the kind. But this interpretation, which after all is
that of a small minority either of ancients or moderns,
must be rejected without hesitation. Angels, often as they
are mentioned in this Book, are never called ' Spirits.' So
also, in testimony of their ministering condition, their
creaturely state, they always stand (Rev. viii. 2 ; Luke i. 1 9 ;
I. 4.] INTRODUCTION, EEV. I. 4~20. 9
1 Kin. xxii. 19, 21), but the Spirits 'are' (sarlv) before
the throne. Again, how it is possible to conceive the Apostle
desiring ' grace and peace' to the Church from the Angels,
let them be the chiefest Angels which are, or from any but
from God alone, who is the God of all grace ? Or how can
we imagine Angels, created beings, interposed here between
the Father and the Son, and thus set as upon an equal
level with Them; the Holy Ghost meanwhile being passed
by, as according to this interpretation He must be, in this
solemn salutation of the Churches? Where, again, would
be the singular glory claimed for Himself by the Son in
those words, ' He that hath the seven Spirits of God '
(iii. 1)? what transcendant prerogative in the fact that
these Angels, with all other created things, were within his
dominion ?
There can then be no serious controversy on this point.
By ' the seven Spirits ' we must understand, not indeed the
sevenfold operations of the Holy Ghost, but the Holy
Ghost sevenfold in his operations ; ' that doth his seven-
fold gifts impart.' Neither need there be any difficulty in
reconciling this interpretation, as Mede urges, with the
doctrine of his personality. It is only that He is regarded
here not so much in his personal unity as in his manifold
energies ; just as light, being one, does yet in the prism
separate itself into its seven colours ; for ' there are diver-
sities of gifts, but the same Spirit ' ( I Cor. xii. 4). The
matter could not be put better than by Eichard of St. Vic-
tor : ' Et a septem Spiritibus, id est, a septiformi Spiritu,
qui simplex quidem est per naturam, septiformis per gra-
tiam ; ' and compare Delitzsch, Bibl. Psychologie, pp. 34,
147. The manifold gifts, operations, energies of the Holy
Ghost are here represented under the number seven, being,
as it is, the number of completeness in the Church, We
10 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [l. 5-
have anticipations of this in the Old Testament. When
the prophet Isaiah would describe how the Spirit should
be given not by measure to Him whose name is ' The
Branch,' the enumeration of the gifts is sevenfold (xi. 2) ;
and the seven eyes which rest upon the stone which the
Lord has laid can mean nothing else but this (Zech. iii. 9.
cf. iv. 10 ; Eev. v. 6). On the number ' seven,' and its
significance in Scripture and elsewhere, above all in this
Book, there will be something to be said presently.
Ver. 5. ' And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful
Witness.'' — In the last of these seven Epistles He calls
Himself ' the faithful and true Witness ' (iii. 14) ; as,
therefore, we shall meet these words again, and they will
be there more conveniently dealt with, I shall content my-
self now with quoting Eichard of St. Victor's noble comment
upon them : ' Testis fidelis, quia de omnibus quae per Eum
testificanda erant in mundo testimonium fidele perhibuit.
Testis fidelis, quia quaecunque audivit a Batre fideliter dis-
cipulis suis nota fecit. Testis fidelis, quia viam Dei in veri-
tate docuit,nec Ei cura de aliquo fuit,nec personas hominum
respexit. Testis fidelis, quia reprobis damnationem, et
electis salvationem nunciavit. Testis fidelis, quia verita-
tem quam verbis docuit, miraculis confirmavit. Testis
fidelis, quia testimonium Sibi a Batre nee in morte negavit.
Testis fidelis, quia de operibus malorum et bonorum in die
judicii testimonium verum dabit.' — A reference to the
original, where the nominative 6 fidprvs 6 ttlcttos is in
apposition to the genitive 'I^crou XpLcrrov, will show that
we have here one of the many departures from the
ordinary grammatical construction, with which this Book
abounds. The officious emendations of transcribers have
caused very many of these, though not this one, to dis-
appear from our received text ; but in any critical edition
I. 5-] INTRODUCTION, REV. I. 4- 20. 11
of the Greek original the multitude of such is one of the
most remarkable of the external features of the Book. To
regard them, which some have done, as evidences of St.
John's helplessness in the management of Greek, his 'un-
beholfenheit' therein, as Ewald terms it, is to regard them
altogether from a wrong point of view. Thus, to take the
case immediately before us, it is not this which is to
explain anything anomalous and unusual here, but rather
that the doctrinal interest here overbears the grammatical.
Diisterdieck very well : ' Das Gewicht der Vorstellungen
selbst durchbricht die Schranken der regelrechten Form ;
die abrupte Eedeweise hebt die gewaltige Selbst standigkeit
aller drei Predicate.' At all costs that all-important o
fidpTvs 6 ttkttos, with the other two titles of the Lord
which follow, shall be maintained in the dignity and em-
phasis of the casus rectus. Compare xiv. 1 2 ; and xx. 2,
where 6 6(pts 6 dp^alos (changed in the received text into
tov 6<piv rbv dpyalov), is in like manner in apposition to
rov SpaKovra ; but above all, and as making quite clear that
St. John adopted these constructions with his eyes open,
and for a distinct purpose, the remarkable diro 6 mv k. t. X.
of the verse preceding that now under consideration.1
' And the first begotten of the dead? — Cf. Col. i. 1 8,
where very nearly the same language occurs, and the same
title is given to the Lord : 6 TrpwToroKos twv veicpoiv here,
irpcoroTOKos sk twv vsKpwv there. The phrases are not
precisely identical in meaning ; and even were they so,
the suggestion of Hengstenberg, that St. John here builds
upon St. Paul, setting his seal to the prior Apostle's word,
1 There is a good discussion on these grammatical anomalies in
the Apocalypse in Lucke's Einleitung zur Offenb. 2d edit. pp. 458-464.
For an exactly parallel case in English, and from the same motives,
see Paradise Lost, vi. 900.
12 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [i. 5.
seems to me highly unnatural. Glorious as this language
is, who does not feel how easily two Apostles, quite in-
dependent of one another, might have arrived at it to ex-
press the same blessed truth ? Christ is indeed ' the first
begotten of the dead,'' notwithstanding that such raisings
from the grave as that of the widow's son, and Jairus's
daughter, and Lazarus, and his who revived at the touch of
Elisha's bones (2 Kin. xiii. 2 1 ), went before. ' None of them
could be truly said to be " begotten from the dead," but
rather begotten to die again ; for to be born and begotten
from the dead includes an everlasting freedom from the
power and approach of death ' (Jackson). There was for
them no repeal of the sentence of death, but a respite
only ; not to say that even during their period of respite
they carried about with them a body of death. Christ first
so rose from the dead, that He left death for ever behind
Him ; did not, and could not, die any more (Rom. vi. 9) ;
in this respect was ' the first-fruits of them that slept '
(1 Cor. xv. 20, 23), ' the Prince of life ' (Acts iii. 15). Al-
cuin : ' Primogenitus ideo dicitur quia nullus ante Ipsum
non moriturus surrexit.' In this 'first begotten of the dead '
(or ' first born from the dead,' as it is at Col. i. 1 8), I do
not see the image of the grave as the womb that bare
Him (\vcras ras doBlvas rov davdrov, Acts ii. 24) ; but,
remembering how often riKT£iv = ysvvav, I should rather
put this passage in connexion with Ps. ii. 7, ' Thou art my
Son ; this day have I begotten Thee.' It will doubtless be
remembered that St. Paul (Acts xiii. 33 ; cf. Heb. i. 5)
claims the fulfilment of these words not in the eternal
generation before all time of the Son ; still less in his
human conception in the Blessed Virgin's womb ; but
rather in his resurrection from the dead ; ' declared to
be the Son of God with power by the resurrection from
I. 5.] INTRODUCTION, REV. I. 4~20. 13
the dead ' (Rom. i. 4). On that verse in Ps. ii., and with
reference to Acts xiii. 32, Hilary (the depth and theologi-
cal value of whose commentaries on Scripture seem to me
at this day very imperfectly recognized), has these words :
' Filius meus es Tu, Ego hodie genui Te ; non ad Virginis
partum, neque ad earn quse ante tempora est generationem,
sed ad primogenitum ex mortuis pertinere apostolica auc-
toritas est.' To Him first, to Him above all others, God
said on that day when He raised Him from the dead,
and gave Him glory, ' Thou art my Son ; this day have I
begotten Thee.'
' And the Prince of the Icings of the earth.'' — A mani-
fest reference to Ps. ii. 2, where the ' kings of the earth '
(cf. Rev. vi. 15, for the same phrase used in the same
sense) appear in open rebellion against the Christ of God ;
cf. Acts iv. 26 ; Ps. ex. 5 ; lxxxix. 27 ; Isai. Hi. 15 ; Matt.
xxviii. 18. Such a ' Prince of the kings of the earth ' He
becomes in the exaltation which follows on his humiliation,
and which is directly connected with it (Phil. ii. 9; Ps.
lxxxix. 27) ; and shows Himself such at his glorious com-
ing, as set forth in the later parts of this Book, ' Lord of
lords, and King of kings ' (xvii. 14 ; xix. 16) ; breaking in
pieces all of those ' kings of the earth'' who set themselves
in battle array against Him, receiving the homage of all
who are wise in time (Ps. ii. 10-12), and bring their glory
and honour to lay them at his feet, and to receive them
back at his hands (Rev. xxi. 24).
' Unto Him that hath loved us, and washed us from
our sins in his oivn blood.' — The words are richer still in
comfort, when we read, as we ought, a^airwvri and not
a<yaTn'](javTL : 'Unto Him that loveth us,' whose love rests
evermore on his redeemed. There is in the theology of
the Greek Church an old and often-recurring play on the
14 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [i. 5.
words Xvrpov and Xovrpov, words so nearly allied in sound,
and both expressing so well, though under images entirely
diverse, the central benefits which redound to us through
the sacrifice of the death of Christ. It is indeed older
than this, and is implicitly involved in the etymology of
Apollo, which Plato, in jest or in earnest, puts into the
mouth of Socrates (C7'atylus, 405 b) : 6 cittoXovwv rs ical
cnroXvwv rcov /catcwv, these nana being impurities of the
body and of the soul. This near resemblance between
Xvuv and Xovsiv has given rise to a very interesting variety
of readings here. Whichever reading we adopt, Xvaavrc
or Xovaavri, ' who hath released its,' or ' ivho hath toashed
us,' the words yield a beautiful meaning, as in either case
they link themselves on to a whole circle of imagery already
hallowed and consecrated by Scripture use. If we adopt
Xvcravri, as does the E. V., the passage connects itself
then with all those which speak of Christ having given
Himself as a Xvrpov (Matt. xx. 28), as an avTiXyrpov for
us (1 Tim. ii. 6. cf. I Pet. i. 18 ; Heb. ix. 12); as redeem-
ing or purchasing us (Gal. iii. 13 ; iv. 5 ; Kev. v. 9; xiv.
3, 4) ; and somewhat more remotely with as many as
describe the condition of sin as a condition of bondage,
sinners as servants of sin (John vi. 17, 20; viii. 34;
2 Pet. ii. 19), and Christ as having obtained freedom for
us (John viii. 33, 36; Eom. viii. 21 ; Gal. v. 1). If on
the other hand we read Xovcravri, then the passage con-
nects itself with such other as Ps. Ii. 4; Isai. i„ 16, 18;
Ezek. xxxvi. 25 ; Kev. vii. 14 ; as Acts xxii. 16; Ephes.
v. 26 ; Tit. iii. 5 ; so, too, with all those which describe the
KaOapi&iv as the object (Eph. v. 26; Tit. ii. 14; Heb.
ix. 14), the KaOapia-puos as the fruit, of Christ's death
(Heb. i. 3 ; 2 Pet. i. 9) ; and somewhat more remotely
with as many as under types of the Levitical law set
I. 6.] INTKODUCTION, KEY. I. 4-20. 15
forth the benefits of this heavenly washing (Num. xix.
17-21). The weight of external evidence is so nearly
balanced that it is very difficult to say on which side it
predominates. The equilibrium of the scale is clearly
marked by the way in which the critical editions are
divided here. The R. V. which, as we have seen, has
adopted Xvaavrt, has yet thought it right to append
these words, ' Many authorities, some ancient, read Xov-
aavrt.' Keeping in view the poetic character of this
Book, XovcravrL certainly seems preferable to the compara-
tively prosaic Xvaravn. Then, too, while it is quite true
that redemption may be contemplated as a \vsiv kv too
aifiart, by better right, and with imagery livelier still, it
may be set forth as a Xoveiv h r<p ai^art. Nor can it be
denied, if we interpret this Book, as clearly we ought,
from itself rather than from any other part even of Scrip-
ture itself, that Rev. vii. 14 points strongly this way.
Ver. 6. ' And hath made us kings and priests unto
God and his Father.' — Or rather, and according to the
reading which must be preferred, * And hath made us a
kingdom [siroirjasv fjfias fiaaiXsiav], priests unto God
and his Father ' (' Et fecit nos regnum, [et] sacerdotes
Deo,' Vulgate). There is a certain apparent inconcinnity
in the abstract ftaaiXsiav joined with the concrete Ispsls,
but there can be no question about the reading, and the
meaning remains exactly the same ; except, indeed, that
instead of the emphasis being equally distributed between
the two words, the larger portion of it now falls on the
first ; and this agrees with the prominence given to the
reigning of the saints in this Book (v. 10 ; xx. 4, 6 ; xxii.
5. cf. Dan. vii. 18, 22). — The royal priesthood of the re-
deemed (see Exod. xix. 6 ; I Pet. ii. 9) flows out of the
royal priesthood of the Redeemer, a Priest for ever after
16 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [i. 6.
the order of Melchizedek (Ps. ex. 4; Zech. vi. 13 ; Heb. v.
10; vii. 17). That the whole number of the redeemed
shall in the world of glory have been made 'priests unto
God ' is the analogue as regards persons to the new Jeru-
salem being without temple, or, in other words, being all
temple, which is declared further on (xxi. 22 ; cf. Tsai. iv.
5, 6). It is the abolition of every distinction between
holy and profane (Zech. xiv. 20, 21), nearer and more
remote from God, not through all being henceforward pro-
fane, which will be Antichrist's reconciliation of the con-
tradictions between the flesh and the spirit, but through
all being henceforth holy, all being brought the nearest
whereof it is capable, to God.
' To Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever.
Amen.'' — A few words on the doxologies, or ascriptions of
glory to God, which are found in the New Testament, and
in which the Book of Eevelation is pre-eminently rich, may
here fitly find place. Great variety reigns in these. Some
are much fuller than others ; nor is this the only way in
which they assert their liberty, and make plain that they
are not restricted to any fixed words or order of words.
Not seldom the doxology is single ; thus at Eom. xi. 36 ;
xvi. 27 ; at both which places 86%a by itself comprehends
all of glorious which is ascribed to God ; while at Eev. vii.
10, (TcoTrjpia stands single in the same way. Sometimes it
is twofold : thus, at 1 Tim. i. 17, ripJ] and So£a. ; at I Pet.
iv. 11, Soga and Kpdros ; at v. 1 1 and at Eev. v. 13, the
same ; at 1 Tim. vi. 16, rifir/ and Kpdros. We have next
the threefold ascription. Of this we have an example at
Eev. xix. 1, crcoTrjpia, 86%a and Svva/Ais, and another at
Eev. iv. 11. Sometimes the doxology is fourfold : thus,
at Eev. v. 13, sv\oyla, rip,rj, Z6%a, Kpdros ; and again at
Jude 25, Sctja, fisyaXcoaivrj, Kpdros, i^ovaia. Sometimes
I. 7.] INTRODUCTION, KEY. I. 4.-20. 17
the ascription is sevenfold. It is so at Eev. v. 12 :
hvva/jus, 7t\ovtos, aocf^ta, sv^aptaTta, tc/jl/], 86£ja, svXoyia ;
and again at vii. 1 2 ; with a noticeable change in the suc-
cession of the words, as well as the introduction of a new
word in each : svXoyla, 86£a, cro<pta, zvyapuxria, Tijxr),
SvvapLis, la^us. When we count up these, and the fre-
quency of their several recurrence, 86ga, which St. Basil
does but poorly define as 6 airo ttoWoop snraivos, appears,
as might be expected, the oftenest — no less than ten times ;
rtfii], six times ; /cpdros, as many; Suvap,ts, three times;
evXojia, as often ; crocpia, twice ; au^apccrrLa, as often ;
crcDTrjpLa, f^syaXwauvi], s^ovcrta, 7t\outos, la^vs, each of
these but once.1 A study of doxological words, or of words
doxologically used, with an accurate comparison of them
one with the other, would very amply repay the pains
bestowed upon it ; above all as it served to remind us of
the prominence which the doxological element assumes
in the highest worship of the Church, the very subordi-
dinate place which it oftentimes takes in ours. We can
perhaps make our requests known unto God ; and this is
well, for it is prayer; but to give glory to God, quite
apart from anything to be directly gotten by ourselves in
return, to give thanks to Him for his great glory, this is
better, for it is adoration ; but if better, it is rarer too.
Ver. 7. ' Behold, He cometh with clouds,' or ' with the
clouds.'' — The constant recurrence of this language in all
descriptions of our Lord's second advent is very remark-
able (Dan. vii. 13; Matt. xxiv. 30; xxvi. 64; Mark xiv.
62), and all the meaning of the announcement will scarcely
be attained till that great day of the Lord shall have
1 In the doxology at 1 Ohron. xxix. 11, 12, the only one which I
know of with a fivefold ascription, three terms, Kavxnpa, vUrj, dvpaareia,
not found in any of those of the New Testament, occur.
C
18 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [i. J.
itself arrived. This much seems certain, namely, that
this accompaniment of clouds (it is fierce iwv vsfyskiov)
belongs not to the glory and gladness, hut to the terror
and anguish, of that day ; as indeed the context of the
present passage would indicate. These clouds have
nothing in common with the light-cloud, the vsfyskr)
(fxorstv/] (Matt. xvii. 5), 'the glorious privacy of light'
into which the Lord was withdrawn for a while from the
eyes of his disciples at the Transfiguration, but are rather
the symbols of wrath, fit accompaniments of judgment :
' Clouds and darkness are round about Him ; righteousness
and judgment are the habitation of his throne ' (Ps. xcvii.
2 ; cf. xviii. II ; Nah. i. 3 ; Isai. xix. 1 ; cf. Rev. xi. 12).
' And every eye shall see Him, and they also which
pierced Him, and all kindreds of the earth shall wail
because of Him. Even so, Amen.' The E. V. has here
for * kindreds ' ' tribes,'' and for ' wail ' ' mourn.' — It will
sometimes happen that a prophecy, severe in the Old
Testament, by some gracious turn will be transformed from
a threat to a promise in the New ; thus, the ' day of visita-
tion ' of the Apostle (1 Pet. ii. 12), and of his Lord (Luke
xix. 44), is another from the ' day of visitation ' of the
prophets (Isai. x. 3 ; Jer. viii. 1 2 ; Hos. ix. 7), — the one
a day to be hoped for, the other to be feared. But it
is not so here. There is indeed a turn, yet not from the
severe to the gracious, but the contrary. The words of
the prophet Zechariah (xii. 10), on which this passage and
John xix. 37 in common rest, are words of grace : ' They
shall look upon Me, whom they have pierced, and they
shall mourn for Him.' They express the profound repent-
ance of the Jews, when the veil shall be at length taken
from their hearts, and they shall behold in Jesus of Naza-
reth, whom they crucified, the Son of God, the King of
I. 8.] INTRODUCTION, REV. I. 4-20. 19
Israel. But it cannot be denied that in their adaptation
here they speak quite another language. They set forth
the despair of the sinful world, of ' all the tribes of the
earth ' (cf. Matt. xxiv. 30), when Christ the Judge shall
come to execute judgment on all that obeyed not his
gospel, who pierced Him with their sins ; they describe
their remorse and despair ; but give no hint of their re-
pentance. The closing words, ' Even so, Amen,' are not
to be taken as the prophet's devout acquiescence in the
terribleness of that judgment-day, — a comparison with
xxii. 20 might easily lead an English reader into this mis-
understanding of them, — but as (rod's own seal and ratifi-
cation of his own word.
Ver. 8. ' I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and
the ending, saith the Lord.'' — Cf. xxi. 6, where the words
' the beginning and the ending ' have a right to a place
in the text ; but not here ; having been transferred from
thence, without any authority at all. He who is ' Alpha
and Omega ' (or better, ' Alpha, and 12 '), and thus indeed
' the beginning and the ending J and * the first and the
last ' (i. 17 ; ii. 8), leaves no room for any other ; is indeed
the only I AM ; and beside Him there is no God (Isai.
xli. 4; xliii. 10; xliv. 6; xlviii. 12). Thus Clement of
Alexandria (Strom, iv. 25): kvk\os yap 6 Tibs iraaS)v rav
Svvdfiscov sis sv si\ovjjbsvcov icai kvovfisvcov 81a tovto "A\<pa
Kal Tfl s'iprjrai : and Tertullian, bringing out the unity of
the Old and New Testaments, and the manner in which
the glorious consummations of the latter attach themselves
to the glorious commencements of the former (De Monog.
5) : ' Sic et duas Graecise litteras summam et ultimam sibi
induit Dominus, initii et finis concurrentium in se figuras;
uti quemadmodum a ad co usque volvitur, et rursus a> ad
a explicatur, ita ostenderet in se esse et initii decursum
c 2
20 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [i. 8.
ad finem, et finis recursum ad initium ; ut omnis dispositio
in Eum desinens, per quern coepta est, per Sermonem
scilicet Dei qui caro factus est, proinde desit quemadmo-
duni et ccepit'
' Which is, and which ivas, and which is to come, the
Almighty.'' — Cf. ver. 4. Uavro/cpdrcop occurs several
times in this Book (as at iv. 8 ; xi. 17; xxi. 22); else-
where only once in the New Testament, and then as a
quotation from the Old (2 Cor. vi. 18). We have always
translated it ' Almighty,' except at Kev. xix. 6, where with
a very sublime effect our Saxon ' Almighty ' is exchanged
for the Latin ' Omnipotent.' In the Septuagint iravro-
/cpdrayp does duty for two Hebrew words. In the Book of
Job, but in that exclusively (v. 17; xv. 2 5 ; xxvii. 2, and
often), it stands for ''W, in which word is expressed the
strength, force, or power by which God is able to do all
things. Elsewhere it is used by the Septuagint Transla-
tors as one, the most frequent, but by no means the only,
rendering of niNIiy nirr (as at Jer. iii. 19; Amos iii. 13 ;
Hab. ii. 13), which at other times they have rendered by
icvpios Bvvdfxscov, or arpcniwv, or crajSaoiO, this last pre-
ferred by St. Paul (Kom. ix. 29) and St. James (v. 4), a
title expressing the rule and dominion which God has over
all. If it be asked, which of these divine titles Christ is
claiming here, which of these attributes He is here chal-
lenging for his own, omnipotence, or universal dominion,
— of course they run into one another, but still are capable
of being distinguished — a comparison of Rev. iv. 8 with
Isai. vi. 3 leaves no doubt that it is the last ; ' dominion
over all, and the rule and government of all ' (see Pearson,
On the Creed, Art. 1 ; Suicer, Thes. s. v.). In the Arian
controversy the word was frequently appealed to and urged
by the Catholics in proof of the equal divinity of the Son,
I. 9.] INTRODUCTION, REV. I. 4--20. 21
who did not count it robbery to claim it for his own ; thus
see Gregory of Nyssa, Con. Eunom. i. 2.
Ver. 9. ' / John, who also am your brother, and com-
panion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience
of Jesus Christ, was in the isle that is called Patmos,
for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus
Christ.'' — Daniel alone among the Prophets of the Old
Testament uses this style — ' I Daniel ' (vii. 28 ; ix. 2 ;
x. 2) ; it is one of the many points of resemblance, small
and great, between this Book and that of Daniel. The /cat,
represented by ' who also am ' in our Version, and modify-
ing this whole clause, should have no place in the text.
It may have been suggested by 1 Pet. v. 1 ; and was pro-
bably inserted by some who esteemed 6 a8s\cf)6s v/icov too
humble a title for one of the chief ' pillars ' of the Church ;
and by that ical would make him to say,' ' who, being an
Apostle, am also a brother.' — It has been sometimes
asked, When was that prophecy and promise fulfilled con-
cerning John, that he should drink of his Lord's cup, and
be baptized with his Lord's baptism (Matt. xx. 22)? The
fulfilment, so far as his brother James was concerned, is
plain ; when the sword of Herod was dyed with his blood
(Acts xii. 2). But for John it may not be so plain. Origen,
however, no doubt gave the right answer long ago (in Matt.
torn. xvi. § 6, in fine): that threat or that promise, for we
may call it either, found its fulfilment in this his banish-
ment to Patmos ; not thereby denying that there must
have been a life-long dXlyjris for such an one as the Apostle
John, but only affirming that the words obtained their
most emphatic and crowning fulfilment now. Let us not
fail to observe the connexion and the sequence — ' tribu-
lation ' first, and ' the kingdom ' afterwards ; on which
Richard of St. Victor well : ' Recte prsemisit, in tribu-
22 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHUKCHES IN ASIA. [1.9.
latlone, et post addit, in regno, quia si compatimur, et
corregnabimus ' (2 Tim. ii. 12. cf. Eom. viii. 17; I Pet. iv.
13). As yet, however, while the tribulation is present,
the kingdom is only in hope ; therefore he adds to these,
as that which is the link between them, ' and patience of
Jesus Christ ; ' compare Acts xiv. 22, where exaetly these
same three, the '•tribulation] the ' patience,1 and the
' kingdom ' occur. 'T7rofAovij, which we have rendered
4 patience,'' being exactly opposed to vttocttoXiJ (Heb. x.
36, 39), is not so much the ' patientia ' as the ' perseve-
rantia' of the Latin; which last word Cicero (De Invent.
ii. 54) thus defines : ' In ratione bene considerata stabilis
et perpetua mansio;' and Augustine (Qucest. lxxxiii. qu.
31):' Honestatis aut utilitatis causa rerum arduarum ac
difncilium voluntaria ac diuturna perpessio.' It is indeed
a beautiful word, expressing the brave and persistent en-
durance of the Christian — fiaaiXis to)v dpsrow, Chrysostom
does not fear to call it (see my Synonyms of the Neiv
Testament, § 53). — Patmos, now Patmo or Palmosa, one of
the Sporades, a rocky island in the Icarian Sea, S.-W. of
Ephesus, might have remained through all the ages with
faintest notice or with none, if its mention here had not
drawn it from its insignificance and given to it a name
and a fame in the Church for ever. This its entire pre-
vious insignificance is slightly, yet unmistakably, indicated
in the words ' that is called Patmos.'' St. John does not
assume his readers to be familiar with it, any more than
St. Mark, writing for those living at a distance from
Palestine, with the Jordan (cf. Mark i. 5 with Matt. iii. 5).
It is otherwise that a well-known island, Crete or Cyprus,
is introduced (Acts xiii. 4). The deportation of criminals,
or those accounted as such, to rocky and remote islands
was, as is well known, a common punishment among the
I. 9.] INTRODUCTION, REV. I. 4 -20. 23
Romans. Titus, according to Suetonius, banished some
delators 'in asperrimas insularum' (Tit. 8; cf. Juvenal,
i. 73 ; Philo, in Flacc. § 1 8, 19). There is a description
of this island written up to the present date, and not
without a certain idyllic grace of its own, in Kenan's
L 'Antechrist, pp. 372-379. At the same time very cha-
racteristic of the man are his regrets that some ' delicious
romance,' such as Longus might have written, had not
here been composed, so far preferable as this would have
been to the work of the gloomy enthusiast (' visionnaire
tenebreux"), which we actually possess.
The unprejudiced reader will hardly be persuaded that
St. John sets himself forth here as any other than one of
those constrained dwellers in Patmos, one dwelling there
not by his own choice, but who had been banished thither
'for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus
Christ ; ' thus compare vi. 9 ; xx. 4 ; and a possible re-
ference to what he himself was undergoing, at xiii. 10.
Some modern interpreters find in these words no refer-
ence to any such suffering for the truth's sake, but only
a statement on the writer's part that he was in the isle
of Patmos for the sake of preaching the Word of God,
or, as others, for the sake of receiving a communica-
tion of the Word of God, that is, of the Book of this
prophecy ; so Bleek, Liicke (Offenbarung d. Johannes, pp.
5 10-5 14), and others ; but these refuse the obvious mean-
ing, which moreover a comparison with vi. 9 ; xx. 4,
seems to render imperative, in favour of one which, if it
also may possibly lie in them, has nothing but this bare
possibility to plead. These expositors, it is difficult not
to think, have been unconsciously influenced by a desire
to get rid of the strong testimony to St. John's authorship
cf the Book which lies in the consent of this declaration
24 EPISTLES TO TEE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [i. IO.
with that which early ecclesiastical history tells us about
him, namely, that for his steadfastness in the faith of
Christ he was by Domitian banished to Patmos, and only
allowed to return to his beloved flock at Ephesus on the
accession of Nerva (Tertullian, De Prcesc. Hceret. 36 ;
Clement of Alexandria, Quis Div. Salv. 42 ; Eusebius,
H. E. iii. 23 ; Jerome, De Vir. Illus.). The Apocalypse,
it is worth observing by the way, has all internal evidence
of having been thus written in time of persecution and by
a confessor of the truth. It breathes throughout the very
air of martyrdom. Oftentimes slighted by the Church in
times of prosperity, it is made much of, and its precious-
ness, as it were, instinctively discovered, in times of adver-
sity and fiery trial. This Bengel has noted well : ' In
tribulatione fidelibus maxime hie liber sapit. Asiatica
Ecclesia, prsesertim a floridissimo Constantini tempore,
minus magni aestimavit hunc librum. Africana Ecclesia,
cruci magis obnoxia, semper hunc librum plurimi fecit.'
Tertullian may be quoted in proof of this assertion. How
often does he seek, now to strengthen the faithful with
the promises, and now to terrify the fearful, the SsiXol of
Eev. xxi. 8, those who out of fear of man go back from
Christ, with the threatenings, of this Book (Scorp. 12 ;
De Cor. 15; cf. Cyprian, De Exhort. Mart, passim).
Ver. 10. ' I ivas in the Spirit on the Lord's day.'' — In
one sense the faithful are always ' in the Spirit ; ' they
are ' spiritual ' ( I Cor. iii. 1 , 15); are ' led by the Spirit '
(Rom. viii. 14); 'walk in the Spirit' (Gal. v. 16, 25).
But here, and at iv. 2; xxi. 10 (cf. Ezek. xl. 2, 'in the
visions of God '), the words are used in an eminent and
peculiar sense ; they describe not the habitual condition
of faithful men, but an exceptional state, differing from
the other not in degree only, but in kind ; a condition in
I. 10.] INTRODUCTION, REV. I. 4-2 0. 25
which there is a suspension of all the motions and faculties
of the natural life ; that a higher life may be called, during
and through this suspension, into a preternatural activity.
It is the state of trance or ecstasy, that is, of standing out
of oneself, dsia i^aWayrj rcov slwOorwv vo/xtficov Plato
(Phcedrus, 265 a) calls it, and on its positive side, hdov-
atd^siv (Apol. 22 c), the man being s/ccppcov that he may
be evOeos (Ion, 533 e) ; constantly described in Scripture as
the condition of those to whom God would speak more
directly (Acts x. 10; cf. xi. 5 ; xxii. 17); the antithesis to
it, or the return out of it, being a ysvofisvos iv savrco (Acts
xii. n), or iv raj voi (1 Cor. xiv. 15).1 St. Paul exactly
describes the experience of one who has passed through this
state, 2 Cor. xii. 2-4. That world of spiritual realities is
one from which man is comparatively estranged so long as
he dwells in this house of clay ; he has need to be trans-
ported out of himself, before he can find himself in the
midst of it, and come into direct contact with it. Here we
have the explanation of the fact that the Lord never was
' in the Spirit,' namely, because He was always ' in the
Spirit,' because He always moved in that region as his
proper haunt and home.
Separated in body from the fellowship of the faithful,
the beloved Apostle was yet keeping with them the weekly
feast of the Eesurrection on the day which the Lord,
1 Augustine {Enarr. in Ps. ciii. 11): ' Illo orante [Acts x. 10]
facta est illi mentis alienatio, quani Grreci ecstasiu dicurit ; id est,
aversa est mens ejus a consuetudine corporali ad visum quendarn con-
templandum, alienata a prsesentibus ; ' cf. in Ps. Ixvii. 28 ; Qucest. in
Gen. 1. I, qu. 80 ; and De Div. Qucest. 1. 2, qu. 1 : ' Mentis alienatio
a sensibus corporis, ut spiritus hominis divino Spiritu assumptus
capiendis atque intuendis imaginibus vacet.' Cf. Aquinas, Su?n. Theol,
2a 2ffi, qu. 175.
26 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [i. 10.
giving to it his own name, had made peculiarly his own. It
was, as St. John is careful to declare to us, ' on the Lord's
Day,' which occupied for the Church the place occupied by
the Sabbath for the Jews, that he thus passed out of him-
self, and was brought within the veil, and heard unspeak-
able words, and beheld things which, unless shown by God,
must have remained for ever hidden from mortal gaze.
Some have assumed from this passage that rjfiepa icvpiatc>}
was a designation of Sunday already familiar among
Christians. This, however, seems a mistake. The name
had probably its origin here. See generally on the sub-
ject the article ' Lord's Day ' in Smith's Dictionary of
Christian Antiquities. A little later we find /cvpia/crj
employed by Ignatius to designate Sunday (ad Magnes.
§ 9), and by Melito of Sardis (Kouth, Reliq. Sac. vol. i.
pp. 1 14, 129), as ' Dominica solemnia ' (De Anima, c. 9),
'dies Dominicus' {Be Idol. 14) by Tertullian; cf. Dio-
nysius of Corinth, quoted by Eusebius, //. E. iv. 23, 8 ;
Clement of Alexandria, Strom, vii. 1 2 ; Origen, Con. Cels.
viii. 22. But though the name, ' the Lord's Day, will
very probably have had here its rise (the actual form of
the phrase may have been suggested by icvpia/cbi> Zslirvov,
1 Cor. xi. 20), — the thing, the celebration of the first day
of the week as that on which the Lord brake the bands
of death, and became the head of a new creation, called
therefore sometimes dvaardaL/jbos ryxspa, this was as old
as Christianity itself (John xx. 24-29 ; I Cor. xvi. 2 ; Acts
xx. 7 ; Ep. of Barnabas, c. 1 5 : ayofisv ryv ryxipav rrjv
oySoTjv sis svcppoavvyv ; cf. Suicer, Thes. s. v. Kvpia/cy).
The strange fancy of some that yp,ipa KvptaKrj means
here ' the day of the Lord,' in the sense of ' the day of
judgment' (as at Joel i. 15 ; iii. 14), intended as it is to
subserve a scheme of Apocalyptic interpretation which
I. II.] INTRODUCTION, REV. I. 4~20. 27
certainly needs all support which it can anywhere find,
has been abundantly refuted by Alford.
' And I heard behind me a great voice, as of a trum-
pet.'— The wondrous vision which the Seer shall behold
does not break upon him all at once ; he first hears behind
him (cf. Ezek. i. 12) 'a voice, great as of a trumpet,'
summoning his attention, and preparing him for the still
greater sight which he shall see. It is a ' great voice,' as
the voice of the Lord must ever be (Ps. xxix. 3-9 ; lxviii.
33 ; Dan. x. 6; Matt. xxiv. 31 ; 1 Thess. iv. 16) : a voice
penetrating and clear, 'as of a trumpet ;' cf. Sophocles,
Ajax, 17, where Ulysses compares in like manner the
voice of Athene to the sound of a trumpet. In the com-
parison there may be allusion, as Hengstenberg is sure
there is, to the divinely-instituted rule of calling together
by a trumpet the congregation of the Lord, when He had
any thing to impart to them (Num. x. 2 ; Exod. xix. 1 6,
19; Joel ii. 1, 15 ; Matt. xxiv. 31; 1 Thess. iv. 16); al-
though this to me does not seem very probable.
Ver. 11. 'Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first
and the last : and, What thou seest, write in a booh, and
send it to the seven Churches which are in Asia ; unto
Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and
unto Thyatira, and unto Sarclis, and unto Philadelphia,
and unto Laodicea.' — Omit ' I am Alpha and Omega, the
first and the last,' which has no right whatever to stand
in the text. Over-busy transcribers have transferred the
first of these clauses from ver. 8, the second from ver. 17.
Omit also ' which are in Asia," as the E. V. has done.
Of the several cities I will say something when we come
to treat of them one by one. It is disputed whether the
' book ' which St. John is to write, and having written, to
send to the seven Churches, is this whole Book of the
23 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [i. II.
Apocalypse, or only the seven shorter Epistles contained
in chapters ii. and iii. Hengstenberg affirms the last ;
but I am persuaded wrongly, and he has against him the
great body of interpreters. ' What thou seest ' must in
that case be restrained to ver. 12-16 of this present chap-
ter. All the rest, to the end of chapter iii., he will have
heard; but will have seen nothing; and moreover ver. 19
is decisive that what he is to write of is more than that
which he has then seen : ' Write the things which thou
hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which
shall be hereafter.'
Doubtless it is not for nothing that seven Chinches,
neither more nor fewer, are here named. The reason of
this lies deeper than some suggest, who will have these
seven to include and exhaust all the principal Churches of
Asia ; whatever other Churches there were being merely
annexed and subordinate to these. But taking into ac-
count the rapid spread of the Gospel in the regions of
Asia Minor, as recorded in Scripture (Acts xix. 9 ; I Cor.
xvi. 9), and in other historical documents of a date very
little later, we cannot doubt that towards the end of the
life of St. John there were flourishing and important
Churches in many other cities of that region besides
these seven ; that if the first purpose of the great as-
cended Bishop of the Church had been to bring under
spiritual review the whole Church of Asia, in this case
Colosse, to which St. Paul addressed an Epistle, and
Hierapolis, where was already the nucleus of a Church
in the same Apostle's time (Col. iv. 13), and where a little
later Papias was bishop, and Miletus, the scene of apostolic
labours (Actsxx. 17), and Tralles, called by Cicero 'gravis,
ornata et locuples civitas,' to the Church in which city
Ignatius wrote an epistle some twenty years later, as he
I. II.] INTRODUCTION, REV. I. 4~20. 29
did to that in Magnesia as well, these with others would
scarcely have been passed by.1 But what we may call the
mystical or symbolic interest overbears and predominates
over the actual. No doubt this actual was sufficiently
provided for in another way, and these seven words of
warning and encouragement so penetrated to the heart of
things that, meeting the needs of these seven Churches,
they also met the needs of all others subsisting in similar,
or nearly similar conditions. Typical and representative
Churches, these embodied, one or another of them, I will
not say all the great leading aspects of the Church in her
faithfulness orher unfaithfulness ; but they embodied agreat
many, the broadest and the oftenest recurring. Grotius :
' Sub earum nomine tacite comprehendit et alias Ecclesias,
quia earum status et qualitates ad septem quasi genera pos-
sunt revocari, quorum exemplum prsebent ilia? Asiaticse.'
The seven must in this point of view be regarded as consti-
tuting a complex whole, as possessing an ideal completeness.
Christ, we feel sure, could not have placed Himself in the
relation which He does to them, as holding in his hand
the seven stars, walking among the seven golden candle-
1 An instructive chapter in Tacitus (Annal. iv. 55), throws much
light on the relative dignity and position, at a period a little earlier
than this, of the chief cities in proconsular Asia. He is describing a
contention which found place among eleven of them, which should
have the honour of erecting a statue and temple to Tiberius. Among
the eleven contending for this glorious privilege, which involved as
well the maintaining as the founding of this cult, five out of our
seven appear. Two, namely Philadelphia and Thyatira, do not enter
the lists. Laodicea, with others not included in our seven, is set
aside, as unequal in wealth and dignity to the task ; Pergamum as
havisg already a temple to Augustus, Ephesus as devoted to Diana,
and other cities for various causes ; till at length Smyrna and Sardis
are the only competitors which remain. Of these Smyrna is preferred,
mainly on account of its greater devotedness to the interests of Rome
in times when as yet the fortunes of the Imperial City were not so
completely in the ascendant as now they were.
30 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHUECHES IN ASIA. [i. 12.
sticks, these stars being the Angels of the Churches, and
the candlesticks the Churches themselves, unless they
ideally represented and set forth, in some way or other,
the universal Church, militant here upon earth.
But this, which I have here rather assumed than
proved, together with another question, namely, whether
besides possessing this typical and representative character,
these seven Epistles are not also historico-prophetical, do
not unfold the future of the Church's fortunes to the end
of time, seven successive stages and periods of its growth
and history, has been so eagerly discussed, has, strangely
enough, roused so much theological passion, that I am
unwilling to treat the subject with the brevity which a
place in this Exposition would require. I must therefore
refer the reader to an Excursus at the end of the volume,
in which I have traced, rapidly indeed, but with some
attempt at completeness, a sketch of the controversy, and
have stated, and sought to justify, the conclusions on the
points in debate at which I have myself arrived.
Ver. 12. ' And I turned, to see the voice that spake with
me. And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks. ,'
— Av^via is a word condemned by the Greek purists, who
prefer \i>xviov (Lobeck, Phrynichus,]). 313). The 'seven
candlesticks ' — the rendering is not a very happy one,
though it is not easy, perhaps impossible, to better it —
send us back, and are intended to send us back, to the
seven-branched candlestick, or candelabrum, which bears
ever the same name of Xv-^yla in the Septuagint (Exod.
xxv. 31; cf. Heb. ix. 2 ; Philo, Quis Rer. Div. Hwr. 44 ;
Josephus, B. J. v. 5. 5) ; or Xv^vla rov cfxaros (i Mace. i.
21); the six arms of which with the central shaft (/caka-
fiia/coi, Exod. xxv. 31 ; ic\d.8oi, Philo, Vit. Mos. iii. 9)
made up the mystical seven, each with its several lamp
I. 12.] INTRODUCTION, REV. I. 4~20. 81
(\v%vos, Zech. iv. 2). Nor is this the first occasion when
that portion of the furniture of the tabernacle has had a
higher mystical meaning ascribed to it. Already in the
candlestick all of gold, which Zechariah saw (iv. 2), there
was an anticipation of this image ; being one of the many
remarkable points of contact between his prophecies and the
Apocalypse. Here, however, it is not one candlestick with
seven branches which St. John beholds : but rather seven
separate candlesticks. Nor is it without a meaning that the
seven thus take the place of the one. The Jewish Church
was one ; for it was the Church of a single people ; the
Christian Church, that too is one, but it is also many ; at
once the ' Church ' and the ' Churches.' These may be
quite independent of one another, the only bond of union
with one another which they absolutely require being that
of common dependence on the same Head, and derivation
of life from the same Spirit ; and are fitly represented by
seven, the number of mystical completeness.
In the image itself by which the Churches are sym-
bolised there is an eminent fitness. The candlestick, or
lamp-stand, as we must rather conceive it here, is not
light, but it is the bearer of light, that which diffuses it,
that which holds it forth and causes it to shine throughout
the house ; being the appointed instrument for this. It
is thus with the Church. God's word, God's truth, in-
cluding in this all which He has declared of Himself in
revealed religion, is its light (Ps. cxix. 105 ; Prov. vi. 23);
the Church is the light-bearer, light in the Lord (Ephes.
v. 8), not having light of its own, but diffusing that which
it receives of Him. Each too of the faithful in particular,
after he has been illuminated (Heb. vi. 4), is a bearer of
the light; 'ye are the light of the world' (Matt. v. 14-
16); 'lights in the world, holding forth the word of life '
32 EriSTLES TO THE SEVEN CHUECHES IN ASIA. [i. 12.
(Phil. ii. 15). In agreement with this aspect of the
matter, in the Levitieal tabernacle the seven-branched
candlestick stood in the Holy Place (Exod. xxvi. 35; xl.
4), which was the pattern of the Church upon earth, as
the Holy of Holies was the pattern of the Church in
heaven ; and the only light which the Holy Place received
was derived from the candlestick ; the light of common
day being quite excluded from it, in sign that the Lord
God was the light thereof, that the light of the Church was
not the light of nature, but of grace. Compare Irenceus,
v. 20. 1 : ' Ubique enim Ecclesia prasdicat veritatem, et
hsec est sirrd/iy^os lucerna, Christi bajulans lumen.' l
These candlesticks are of gold (cf. Exod. xxv. 31 ;
Zech. iv. 2), as so much else in this Book; the 'golden
girdle ' (i. 13) ; ' golden crowns ' (iv. 4) ; ' golden vials '
(v. 8); * golden censer ' (viii. 3); 'golden altar' (ibid.);
'golden reed' (xxi. 15); 'the city of pure gold'' (xxi.
18) ; ' the street of the city of pure gold ' (xxi. 21). No
doubt the preciousness of all belonging to the Church of
God is indicated by the predominant employment of this
the costliest and most perfect metal of all. A hint no doubt
we have here of this, exactly as in the Ark and furniture
of the Ark so much in like manner is of pure gold, the
mercy-seat, the cherubim, the dishes, spoons, covers,
tongs, snuff-dishes (Exod. xxv. 17, 18, 29, 38), the pot
which had manna (Exod. xvi. 33),2 everything in short
which did not by its bulk and consequent weight abso-
1 cE7rro^u£os is a rare Church word : but ' myxa ' is in Martial,
and the following quotation from him is apt, and tells its own story :
' Illustrem cum tota meis convivia flammis,
Totque geram myxas, una lucerna vocor.'
2 So much is not here said, bat that this was a golden pot we learn
from Heb. ix. 4: cf. LXX. in loc, and Philo, O-ng. Erud. Gent. § 18.
I. 13.] INTRODUCTION, REV. I. 4-20. 33
lutely preclude this, and even that was for the most part
overlaid with gold (Exod. xxv. 10, II, 23, 24). ' But the
mere costliness of gold, that it was of all metals the rarest,
and therefore the dearest, this was not the only motive
for the predominant employment of it. Throughout all
the ancient East there was a sense of sacredness attached
to this metal, such as still to a great extent survives.
Thus ' golden ' in the Zend-Avesta is throughout synony-
mous with heavenly or divine. So also in many Eastern
lands while silver might be degraded to profane and every-
day uses of common life, might as money pass from hand
to hand, ' the pale and common drudge 'twixt man and
man,' it was not permitted to employ gold in any services
except only royal and divine (see Bahr, Symbolik, vol. i.
pp. 273, 282, 292). The permission to drink out of gold
was a special favour vouchsafed to few (1 Mace. xi. 58) ; so
too the permission to wear gold (1 Mace. xiv. 43) is re-
ported as a peculiar honour and privilege.
Ver. 13. ' And in the midst of the seven candlesticks
One like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment
down to the foot.'' — Some translate ' like unto a son of
man,'' that is to say, ' like unto a man,' the words merely
for them expressing that He who was seen was in human
shape, and, so far as the appearance warranted the con-
clusion, the sharer of a human nature (Ezek. xxxvii. 3, 16 ;
xxxix. 1 ). The absence of the articles, however, does not
require this either here or at xiv. 14 ; any more than vibs
1 Oocceius : ' Aurum in figuris et symbolicis locutionibus signifi-
cat id quod est omnium optimum, quod omnia perficit, et a nullo
perficitur ; sed in se est perfectissiinum et purissinium, nullique mu-
tationi obnoxium ; quemadmodum aurum omnium metallorum per-
fectissimum est, et ab aliis non perficitur ; sed quibus accedit ea
perficit, et nee temporis, nee ignis, omnium destructoris, violentiam
injuriamque sentit.'
D
34 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASTA. [i. 1 3.
%zov (Matt, xxvii. 54) demands to be translated, ' a son of
God,' or Trvsvfxa ©sou,' a Spirit of God.' The beloved Apostle
by this ' like unto the Son of man ' would imply that in
this sublime apparition he recognized Him whom he had
once known on earth, the born of the Virgin Mary ; who
even in those days of his flesh had claimed to be executor
of all judgment, because He was the Son of man (John v.
27; cf. Dan. vii. 13, where this title first appears). — We
are again reminded of Daniel's vision, where in like
manner He whom the prophet saw on the banks of Hidde-
kel was ' clothed in linen ' (x. 5 ; xii. 6, 7), or, as it would
be more rightly translated, ' in a long linen garment.'
Uo&ijprjs, from irovs and cipsiv, the ' poderis ' of ecclesias-
tical Latin, is properly an adjective here, with -^ircov or
<rro\r) understood ; thus 7ro8f]pcs evSv/ia, Wisd. xviii. 24,
aairls iroSi]prjs, Xenophon, Gyrop. vi. 2. 10, a shield
reaching down to the feet, such as the Ovpsos (Ephes. vi.
16), and covering the whole person; see my Synonyms
of the Neiv Testament, § 50. The long robe or stole is
everywhere in the East the garment of dignity and honour
(Gen. xxxvii. 3 ; Mark xii. 38 ; Luke xv. 22) — the asso-
ciation of dignity with it probably resting originally on the
absence of the necessity of labour, and thus of loins girt
up, which it seemed to imply : see, on the other hand,
2 Sam. x. 4. The word nowhere else occurs in the New
Testament, but several times in the Old ; and designates
there sometimes the long linen garment common to all the
priests, the chetoneth, or ' holy linen coat ' (Lev. xvi. 4 ;
Exod. xxxix. 27), sometimes the High Priest's 'robe of
the ephod ' (Exod. xxviii. 31; Zech. iii. 4; Wisd. xviii.
24) ; a-ToiXr) So^tjs, as it is called, Ecclus. xlviii. 7. Yet
these passages must not lead us, as they have led some,
to regard this as a manifestation of Christ in his priestly
I. 13.] INTRODUCTION, EEV. I. 4-2O. 35
character alone. The Kheims version, indeed, renders
7ro8/]pr]s here ' a priestly garment,' but has no warrant
for this. Any stately garment, any ' vestis talaris,' may
be indicated by the word (Ecclus. xxvii. 8), as for instance,
that worn by the Angel of the covenant (Ezek. ix. 2, 3).
So too in Isaiah's magnificent vision (vi. 1 ), He was clothed
with a irohrjpris, though the word does not there occur,
whom the prophet beheld sitting as a King upon his
throne, and ivhose train filled the temple. The iroh^p^s,
in fact, is quite as much a kingly garment as a priestly,
even as Christ presents Himself here not only as the
Priest, but the King, and so far as there is any predomi-
nance, more the King than the Priest, ruling in the midst
of his Church.
' And girt about the paps with a golden girdle.'' — We
read in like manner of the Angels who carry out the
judgments of (rod, as ' having their breasts girded with
golden girdles ' (xv. 6 ; ef. Ovid : ' cinctseque ad pectora
vestes '). The ordinary girding for one actively engaged
was at the loins (i Kin. ii. 5 ; xviii. 46 ; Isai. xlv. 1 ; Jer.
i. 17 ; xiii. 11 ; cf. Luke xii. 35 ; Ephes. vi. 14; 1 Pet. i.
13) ; but Josephus (Antt. iii. 7. 2) expressly tells us that
the Levitical priests were girt higher up, about the breast,
or as it is here ' about the paps ' {Itti^vvvvtcu Kara
o-Trjdos) — favouring, as this higher cincture did, a calmer,
more majestic movement (see Braun, Be Vest. Hebr. p.
402). The girdle, as knitting up into a compact unity
all the scattered forces of a man, is often contemplated as
the symbol of strength and activity (Isai. xxii. 21 ; xlv.
5 ; Jer. xiii. 1 1 ; Job xii. 18) ; and as nothing is so strong
as righteousness and truth, therefore the prophet foretells
of Messiah, ' Kighteousness shall be the girdle of his loins,
and faithfulness the girdle of his reins ' (Isai. xi. 5 ; cf.
D 2
36 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [i. 1 4.
Ephes. vi. 1 4). The girdle here is ' golden ; ' not merely
with a golden clasp or buckle, as Hengstenberg, relying
on 1 Mace. x. 89; xi. 58; xiv. 44, where such appears as
the ensign of royalty, would have it ; but all of gold ; cf.
xv. 7 ; and Dan. x. 5 : ' His loins were girded with fine
gold of Uphaz.' It is quite true that the ' curious girdle '
of the High Priest was not golden, but only wrought and
interwoven with gold(Exod. xxviii. 8 ; xxxix. 5) ; but this,
with other departures in this appearance of the Lord from
the investiture of the High Priest, only helps to confirm
what was just asserted, namely, that we have to do with
Him here not as the Priest only, but as also the King, in
his Church ; for it is in this direction that all the varia-
tions tend.
Yer. 14. 'His head and his hairs were white like wooV
[or ' as white wool] so the E. V.], 'as white as snow.' — Cf.
Dan. vii. 9 : ' The hair of his head was like the pure wool ;'
wool and snow being joined together on the score of their
common whiteness both there and at Isai. i. 18. Those
interpreters are altogether astray who see in this whiteness
of the Lord's hairs the symbol of age, the hoary head as
of the Ancient of Days, which should inspire honour and
respect. Clement of Alexandria has not escaped this error
(Pwdag. 1. iii. p. 262) ; nor Augustine {Exp. ad Gal. iv.
21): ' Dominus non nisi ob antiquitatem veritatis in
Apocalypsi albo capite apparuit ; ' nor Vitringa, who gives
a reference to Lev. xix. 32. That it is an error a moment's
consideration must convince. The white hairs of old age
are at once the sign and the consequence of the decay of
natural strength, in other words, of death commencing ;
the hair blanching because the blood refuses to circulate
any longer in these extremities, as it will one day refuse to
circulate in any part of the frame. Being then this token
I. 14.] INTRODUCTION, REV. I. 4- 20. 37
of decay, how can the white hairs, the hoary head which
is the sign of weakness and of the approach of death, be
ascribed to Him who, as He is from everlasting, so also is
He to everlasting ? Even the Angel at the sepulchre
appears as a veavicrfcos, ' a young man ' (Mark xvi. 5 ; cf.
Zech. ii. 4); so in Paradise Lost (iv. 845) the cherub is
* severe in youthful beauty ; ' what, then the Angel's Lord
(cf. 2 Esdr. ii. 43, 47)? How then shall we explain this
hair ' white like white wool ' ? It is a part of the trans-
figuration in light of the glorified person of the Redeemer ;
a transfiguration so complete that it reaches to the ex-
tremities, to the very hairs of the head. A comparison
with the passage in Daniel, already referred to (vii. 9),
will leave no doubt of this. Fire at its highest intensity
is white ; the red in fire is of the earth earthy, implies
something which the fire has not yet thoroughly subdued
and transmuted, while the pure flame is absolutely white.
* Das Weiss ohne alle Beimischung von Finsterniss den
reinen absoluten Triumph des Lichtes darstellt ' (De-
litzsch, on Isai. i. 18). This must be kept in mind
whenever we read of white as the colour and livery of
heaven.
'And his eyes were as aflame of fire? — Cf. Dan. x. 6 :
' His eyes [were] as lamps of fire.' This too has been
understood by some, of the clearsightedness of Christ,
all things being open and manifest to the eyes of Him with
whom we have to do ; thus Vitringa : ' Significant per-
spicaciam divinse et purse mentis omnia arcana pervaden-
tis.' The explanation is insufficient; and Cocceius much
better : ' Significat hoc iram airapalrvTov in adversarios.'
The words do not say merely that nothing can escape his
searching penetrative glance ; that 'his eyes behold and his
eyelids try the children of men ' (Ps. xi. 4) ; they express
38 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [i. 1 5.
much more than this — the indignation of the Holy One at
the discoveries of evil which He thus makes. These ' eyes
of fire ' do not merely look through the hypocrite and the
sinner, but consume him, him and his sins together, — un-
less indeed he will suffer them to consume his sins, that so
he may live. For indeed in the symbolism of Scripture
fire is everywhere the expression of the divine anger ; and,
seeing that nothing moves that anger but sin, of the divine
anger against sin (Gen. xix. 24 ; Lev. x. 2 ; Num. xi. 1 ;
xvi. 35 ; Deut. xxxii. 22 ; Ps. xi. 6 ; xxi. 9 ; 1. 3 ; xcvii. 3 ;
2 Kin. i. IO, 12; Isai. ix. 18, 19; x. 17; xxx. 27; xxxi.
9; xxxiii. 14; xlvii. 14; lxvi. 15, 16, 24; Ezek. xxxviii.
19, 22 ; xxxix. 6; Dan. vii. 9, 10 ; Zeph. i. 18; Mai. iv.
1 ; Luke ix. 54 ; xvi. 24 ; 2 Thess. i. 8 ; Heb. x. 27 ;
xii. 29 ; Jude 7 ; Rev. xi. 5 ; xx. 9). It need hardly be
observed, as confirming this interpretation, that the eyes
flashing fire are evermore the utterance, the outward
tokens of indignation and wrath ; thus Homer (II. xiii.
474) : 6(f)6a\/Lia) 8' apa 01 irvpl Xu/xttstov : cf. Lucretius,
iii. 290; Virgil, JSn. xii. 10 1, 102; Ovid, Met. iii. 33.
If any hesitation existed in ascribing this meaning to the
symbol here, it must be removed by a comparison with
xix. 11, 12. The whole imagery there is of Christ as a
man of war coming forth in his anger to fight against
and destroy his enemies, and the ' eyes as a flame of fire '
are again ascribed to Him there. In Plato (Legg. v.
739 c), we have (pcocrtpopa o/xLiara.
Ver. 15. ' And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they
burned in a furnace.' — For ifine ' the R. V. has ' bur-
nished^ and for ' as if they burned,' i as if it had been
refined.' The iroh^p^s, reaching, as the name indicates,
to the feet, yet did not fall so low but that it permitted
these to be seen. They were no doubt bare ; as were the
I. 15.] INTRODUCTION, REV. I. 4~20. 39
feet of the Levitical priesthood ministering in the sanc-
tuary. We are nowhere indeed expressly told of these
that they ministered barefoot, but everything leads to
this conclusion. Thus, while all other parts of the priestly
investiture are described with the utmost minuteness,
and Moses is accurately instructed how they should be
made, there is no allusion to any covering for the feet.
Then again the analogy of such passages as Exod. iii. 5 ;
Josh. v. 15 ; Acts vii. 33, and the fact that the moral idea
of the shoe is that of a protection against the defilements of
the earth, of which defilements there could be none in the
Holy Place, all this irresistibly points to the same conclu-
sion. Plutarch's assertion to the contrary (Symp. iv. 6.
2), who ascribes, to the High Priest at least, buskins
{ico66pvovs\ cannot be regarded as of the slightest weight
on the other side. It is only one little blunder more, added
to the heap of other blunders which he makes about the
worship of the Jews ; and over against this we may set the
testimony of Juvenal {Sat. vi. 158) : * Observant ubifesta
mero pede sabbata reges.' Uncovered at all events the feet
on the present occasion were ; for St. John seeing, is able
to compare them to ' fine brass ' — so we have rendered
the word.
~Ka\Ko\ifiavos — for there is no reason why we should
assume a neuter, yaXicoXifiavoV) for the nominative, as
very commonly is done — occurs only here and at ii. 18 ;
being, in all probability, a word of St. John's own com-
pounding. It has much perplexed, one might say has
hitherto defied, interpreters to give any certain account
of it — to do more than guess at its etymology and its
meaning. Some have suggested, and the suggestion is as
old as Arethas, — it is indeed older, for the Syriac and the
Ethiopia Versions assume it, — that we are to find Alfiavos,
40 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [i. 1 5.
or Lebanon, in the latter part of the word, and that %aX-
KoXiftavos means ' brass of Mount Lebanon,'' such as was
there found ; or more generally ' mountain-brass,' ' auri-
chalcum,' as it is in the Vulgate ; in the first syllable of
which, as need hardly be observed, we are not to find
' aurum,' as though this mixed metal were of gold and
brass, and the word designating it a hybrid, partly Latin,
partly Greek, but opos, ' orichalcum ' (Virgil, JEn. xii. 87)
= opsixak/cos. So one quoted by Wolf : ' Libanus pro
monte quolibet, fortasse quod Libanus dederit ejusmodi
genus metalli ; ' which it has been further sought to prove
by putting together the promise to Asher, ' Thy shoes
shall be iron and brass' (Deut. xxxiii. 25), and the fact
that Lebanon was within the borders of this tribe. It is
hardly fair to urge against this etymology the objection
that it violates the law which holds good in Greek com-
posite words, namely, that the more important word should
come last, and the merely qualitative first (see Donaldson,
Gr. Gram. §§ 370, 372) ; an objection holding good
quite as much in our own language, in which ' brass-
mountain ' would signify something very different from
'mountain-brass,' and ' rose-tree ' from ' tree-rose.' It is, I
say, hardly fair to urge this, that the word should be rather
XifiavoxaXKos than ^aXKo\l/3avos, because the same ob-
jection may be urged against every other attempted
explanation, including that which seems to me the most
probable of all. Another suggestion, first made by Sal-
masius, and which Ludolf {Lex. jfithiop. p. 234) has
adopted, to the effect that this mysterious word is a some-
what euphonic form of xa\fcoic\i/3avos, brass of the fur-
nace (/cXifiavos), is scarcely likely to find favour, and is
not worthy of any serious notice. As little, I confess,
does the solution of the riddle of this word, which Bishop
I. 15.] INTRODUCTION, EEY. I. 4-2O. 41
Wordsworth has allowed (see too Ewald, Johan. Script.
vol. ii. p. 118), commend itself to me, namely, that the
second part of the word is \l(3avos, frankincense, brass of
the colour of frankincense, that is, brass of a dark copper
hue ; for, to say nothing of the extreme unlikelihood of
frankincense being sought out to suggest what the colour
was, this part of the description is thus put in direct
opposition with all the rest. Everything else is light, fire,
of a white shining brightness ; the feet must be so as
well.
The explanation which satisfies this, as well as other
conditions, and commends itself above any other, is one
first proposed by Bochart (in a learned disquisition, De
Animal. S. Script, pars ii. c. xvi. p. 883); and since
adopted by Grotius, Vitringa, Hengstenberg, Bleek, and
others. Bochart sees in ^a\Ko\lj3avos, a hybrid formation,
the combination of a Greek word and a Hebrew, ^oKkos,
and }3?=:' albare,' to make white; brass which in the fur-
nace has attained what we call ' white heat.' In this word
on a small scale, as in the Apocalypse itself on a larger,
the two sacred tongues, Greek and Hebrew, will thus be
wonderfully married. If this be the key of the word, it
will then exactly correspond to, and the Seer will have in-
tended to express by it, the ' burnished brass ' of the feet
of the four living creatures (Ezek. i. 7 ; cf. ver. 27 ; viii.
2 ; xl. 3); the 'polished brass' of the feet of Him whom
Daniel saw on the banks of Hiddekel (Dan. x. 6), neither
' burnished ' nor ' polished ' in those passages of our Trans-
lation exactly expressing the force of the original ; which
the LXX by i^ao-TpaTrrcov in the first passage, <tti\/3cov in
the second (the Vulgate has well ' candens ' in both), had
more precisely seized. If this be correct, the xa\fco\i'f3avos
will not be the 'fine brass,' of our A. V., nor yet the ' bur-
42 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [i. 1 5.
nished ' of the E. V., but the ' glowing brass.' ' This
conclusion is very much strengthened by the epexegesis,
' as if they burned in a furnace ; ' words of explanation
immediately added by St. John, as probably knowing the
difficulty which his readers would find in this unusual
term. A further confirmation we may draw from a com-
parison with x. 1 , where feet as ' pillars of fire ,' which can
only be feet as glowing or burning brass, are ascribed to
the mighty Angel who there appears. This grand and
terrible image sets forth to us Christ in his power to tread
down his enemies ; at once to tread down and to consume
them — ' ut potentissimum in conculcandis hostibus '
(Marckius).
' And his voice as the sound of many waters^ —
Hitherto St. John has trodden closely on the footsteps of
Daniel in his delineation of Him whom his eyes beheld ;
but grand as is the imagery which Daniel offers ('the
voice of his words [was] like the voice of a multitude,'
Dan. x. 6), the Seer of the New Testament, leaving this,
draws now his comparison from another quarter, from Ezek.
xliii. 2 : ' his voice was like a noise of many waters ; ' cf.
xiv. 2 ; xix. 6 ; Ezek. i. 24 ; Jer. 1. 42 ; Isai. xvii. 12. "We
may note herein a special characteristic of this wonderful
Book. Were it not that the term * mosaic ' always seems
to imply, or to suggest, something artificial, we might in
many parts liken the Apocalypse to such a costly mosaic ;
the stones of which, polished and wrought into novel com-
binations of beauty, have been gathered from all the
richest mines of the Old Testament and the New. — By
1 Of an atblete in perfect health and highest training, Dio Chry-
sostom says (Or at. 28), ei^e 8e to xpu>Pa ofxoiov xo\k(3 KeKpa/jLevco: but
something more is intended here.
I. 1 6.] INTRODUCTION, REV. I. 4~-20. 43
this comparison of the voice of the Lord to ' the sound of
many waters,' is not to be understood the 'prasdicatio
Evangelii ' (Vitringa), but the terribleness of the voice
with which He will rebuke his foes within the Church and
without.
Ver. 1 6. i And He had in his right hand seven stars.'
— Cf. ver. 20 ; ii. I ; iii. I . How and in what combination
we are to conceive that the Lord thus ' had in his right
hand ' these ' seven stars,' has been often asked, and the
question variously answered. Was it as so many jewelled
rings on the fingers ? The threatened rejection of the
Laodicean Angel (iii. 16) would then find a remarkable
parallel in Jer. xxii. 24 : ' Though Coniah, king of Judah,
were the signet upon my right hand, yet would I pluck
thee thence.' But, not to mention other objections, the
seven stars would ill distribute themselves on four fingers.
Better therefore to represent them to our mind's eye as a
wreath or garland which He grasped in his right hand.
' Tlie mystery of the seven stars ' we shall return to before
long (ver. 20) ; and on two occasions shall have need to
consider what is the spiritual signification of his having
or holding these stars in his right hand (ii. I ; iii. 1) ; all
which may therefore for the present be passed over.
' And out of his mouth ivent a sharp two-edged
sword.' — Cf. ii. 12; xix. 15; Isai. xlix. 2. '¥on<paia,
sometimes pofifiaia, in artificial Grreek-Latia ; rhom-
phsea,' but in Latin proper, ' rumpia ' (Ennius, Annal. 14
[the passage has not reached us] ; Valerius Flaccus, vi. 96),
is a Thracian word for a Thracian weapon (A. Gellius, x. 25 ;
cf. Diefenbach, Origines Europcece, p. 409). It is properly
the ' framea,' the long and heavy broadsword {po/x^aia
(3apvalhr)pos, Plutarch, jEmil. Paul. 18; cf. Livy, xxxi.
39), with which the Thracians and other barbarous nations
44 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [i. 1 6.
were armed ; very much resembling the Gaelic claymore ;
and as such distinguished from the /ubd-^acpa, the sacrificial
knife, or short stabbing sword ; though the Septuagint does
not recognize any such distinction (Judg. i. 8, 25). The
word, occurring six times in the Apocalypse, only occurs
once besides in the New Testament (Luke ii. 35). This
sword is ' two-edged ' here (hlaropuos, cf. Heb. iv. 1 2,
fxd^aipa SlcrTOfjios = djX(plaTOfi09^dju,(f)/]Kr]s, Homer, 11. x.
256 ; Sophocles, Antig. 121 2) ; the sharpness of it being
reckoned as its mouth ; cf. Heb. xi. 34, aropbara fia^aipas,
and Judg. iii. 16; Ps. cxlix. 6; Prov. v. 4; Ecclus. xxi.
4; Trpocrwirov fxa-^alpas, Isai. xxxi. 8. The phrase, 'the
devouring sword' (2 Sam. xviii. 8; Isai. i. 20; xxxi. 8;
Jer. ii. 30), rests on the same image. Yet it is not a mere
Hebraism ; but may be met in classical Greek poetry, and
indeed in Greek prose as well ; thus Zlarofia (fxiayava
(Euripides), 7ts\skvs Sio-rofios. As it is from the mouth
that man's word proceeds, so this sword, not wielded in
the hand, but proceeding from the mouth, of the Son of
God, is his Word (cf. Isai. xlix. 2 : ' He hath made my
mouth like a sharp sword ') ; but his Word as it is also
Spirit ; ' the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of
God' (Ephes. vi. 17 ; cf. Heb. iv. 12 ; Isai. xi. 4). They
fall short of the full meaning of this emblem, who press
mainly as the tertium coiwparationis here the pene-
trative searching power of the Word of God, amputating
our vices, convincing us of our sins ; as does Tertullian
(Adv. Marc. iii. 14) ; Cocceius : ' Notatur vis verbi in
conscientiam ; ' and Henry More (Mystery of Iniquity,
ii. xiv. 6) : ' A prophetic symbol of that wonderful con-
trition of heart that the powerful Word of God makes
when sincerely and seasonably evibrated against the
enemies of his kingdom.' The whole feeling and sense of
I. 1 6.] INTRODUCTION, REV. I. 4-2O. 45
this passage requires that we should regard this sword from
the mouth as expressing rather the punishing than the
convincing power of God's Word ; as Delitzsch, on Heb. iv.
1 2, says well : ' Ein Bild des sichtenden, richtenden, vernich-
tenden Werkes des Wortes der Worte.' With this sword from
his mouth He fights against his enemies and destroys them
(cf. ii. 12, 16 ; xix. 15, 21) ; for the Word of the Lord is
no empty threat, but having in readiness to avenge all dis-
obedience (cf. Hos. vi. 5 ; Isai. xi. 4 ; 2 Thess. ii. 8 ; Wisd.
xviii. 15, 16). — Shall we give any spiritual significance to
the two-edgedness of this sword ? Of course it indicates
the power which it has to pierce and to penetrate ; but
many have seen in it more than this ; Tertullian for
instance {Adv. Jud.): 'Bis acutus duobus Testamentis,
legis antiquse, et legis novse ; ' cf. Augustine, Enarr. in Ps.
cxlix. 6 ; De Civ. Dei, xx. 21.2; and Eichard of St. Victor :
' Qui gladius utraque parte dicitur acutus, quia in Veteri
Testamento amputavit vitia carnalia, in Novo etiam spiri-
tualia. Utraque parte acutus est, quia qui foris in nobis
amputat luxuriam carnis, intus resecat malitiam cordis.
Utraque parte acutus est, quia in his qui contemnunt quae
prsecepit, corpus et animam punit. Utraque parte acutus
est, quia malos et a bonis discernit, et singulis quod
merentur reddit.' Philo (De Cher. 9) likens the Aoyos-,
thus quick and piercing, to the (pXojivv potato, (Gen. iii.
24) with which the Cherubim kept the way of the tree of
life.
' And his countenance was as the sun shineth in his
strength.'' — Of the Angel who stood by the vacant tomb on
the Resurrection morn it is said, ' His countenance was like
lightning ' (Matt, xxviii. 3 ; cf. Judg. xiii. 6 ; Dan. x. 6) ;
here the countenance of the Lord is compared to the sun
* in his strength'' (cf. x. 1), at his brightest and clearest,
46 EHSTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [l. 1 6.
in the splendour of his highest noon, no veil, no mist, no
cloud obscuring his brightness ( Judg. v. 31). When He
shall appear, they that are his shall be like Him, for they
shall see Him as He is ; therefore of them too it can be said
that in that day ' they shall shine forth as the sun in the
kingdom of their Father ' (Matt. xiii. 43 ; cf. Wisd. iii. 7).
No doubt if there had been aught in nature brighter than
the sun, the Seer would have chosen it to set forth the
transcendant and intolerable brightness of that countenance
which he now beheld.
This description of the glorified Lord, which has now
been brought to a conclusion, sublime as a purely mental
conception, but unendurable, if we give it an outward form
and expression, and picture Him to ourselves or to others
with this sword proceeding from his mouth, these feet as
glowing brass, this hair white as wool, and the rest, may
suggest a few reflections on the apocalyptic, and generally
the Hebrew symbolism, and on the very significant rela-
tions of difference and opposition in which it stands to the
Greek. Religion and Art for the Greek ran into one an-
other with no very signal preponderance of the claims of
the former over the latter. Even in his religious sym-
bolism the sense of beauty, of form, of proportion, over-
rules every other, and must at all costs find its satisfaction ;
so that the first necessity of the symbol is that it shall
not affront, that it shall satisfy rather, the sesthetic sense.
Rather than it should offend this, it would be moulded and
modified even to the serious injury of the idea of which it
was intended to be the exponent (Renan, Antechrist, p.
378). But with the Hebrew symbolism it is altogether
different. The first necessity there is that the symbol
should set forth truly and fully the religious idea of which
it is intended to be the vehicle. Thus the New Jeru-
I. 1 6.] INTRODUCTION, REV. I. 4-20. 47
salem ' lieth foursquare ; the length and the breadth and
the height of it are equal' (Rev. xxi. 16). A city, con-
stituting thus a perfect cube, is simply inconceivable to
us ; but the divine Seer did not care that we should Gon-
ceive it ; he was only careful to express the fact that this
was a City which should never be moved ; and of this
fact the tetragon was the aptest symbol. In the present,
as in so many other cases, how the idea would appear
when it clothed itself in an outward form and shape,
whether it could clothe itself in this at all, and, if it
could, whether it would find favour and allowance at
the bar of taste, as satisfying the conditions of beauty,
this all was a secondary consideration. JNay, we may
affirm that this was not a consideration at all ; for in-
deed, with the one exception of the Cherubim, there was
no intention that the symbol should embody itself out-
wardly, but rather that it should remain ever and only
a purely mental conception, the unembodied sign of an
idea ; — I may observe, by the way, that no skill of deliu ca-
tion can make the Cherubim themselves other than un-
sightly objects to the eye. Thus in this present description
of Christ, sublime and majestic as it is beyond all concep-
tion of ours, it is only such so long as we keep it wholly
apart from any external embodiment. Produce it out-
wardly, the sword going forth from the mouth, the eyes as
a flame of fire, the hair white as wool, the feet as molten
brass ; and each and all of these images in one way or
another violate and offend our sense of dignity and beauty.
Bengel, missing this important distinction, has ventured
to give a picture of the Lord Jesus according to this de-
scription, prefixing it to his German Commentary on the
Apocalypse ; a picture which is almost degrading, and
only not deeply offensive to every sentiment of reverence
48 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [i. l6.
and religious awe, because we are sure that it could not
have been so intended by this admirable man.1
The explanation of the difference does not lie alto-
gether in the fact that the Greek created his symbol, and
therefore could do what he pleased with his own ; while
the Hebrew received his from God, and could not there-
fore venture to touch it. It would have existed more or
less without this distinction between the given and the
invented, the inspired and uninspired. The unsightli-
ness, often the repulsiveness, of the symbol so long as it
is judged merely by the laws of aesthetic beauty, is com-
mon to all the religions of the East. What an ugly sight
is the ' Artemis multimammia,' the Artemis with many
breasts, of Ephesus, — an Oriental deity, it need ha,rdly be
said, and not a Greek ; what monstrous forms the Indian
idols, with their many heads and their hundred arms,
present; expressing as these many heads do, thought, and
these hundred arms, power to embody that thought in act.
With all this we should altogether err if we accepted this
as the mark of an inferiority of these nations to the
Greeks. Inferiority in one aspect no doubt it does indi-
cate, a slighter perception of the beauty of form ; but
superiority in other and more important matters, a deeper
religious earnestness, a feeling upon their part that the
essence was above the form., a conviction that truth, such
as they conceived it, was more than beauty, and that
1 Others have done the same, though with quite a different ohject
aud aim. I can perfectly remember seeing; exposed in Oarlile's shop-
window a blasphemous picture with the title, ' The God of the
Bible,' or, ' The God of the Old Testament,' constructed according
to a similar scheme. Two or three days after, a Jew was brought
before the magistrates, a ' zealot,' who in a righteous indignation had
dashed his hand through the window, seized and destroyed it ; and I
do not think it appeared again.
I. 17.] INTRODUCTION, REV. I. 4 -20. 49
everything else, as of inferior moment, was to be sacrificed
to this.
Ver. 17. ' And when I saiv Him, I fell at his feet as
dead.' On this second aorist (sTrsaa) with a termination
of the first, an Alexandrian, and afterwards a Byzantine,
form, see Lobeck, Phrynichus, p. 724, and Sturz, De
Dialecto Alexandrind, p. 61. See also Westcott's Neiv
Testament, p. 164. — This falling, as is evident, is no
voluntary act of homage on the part of St. John, but an
involuntary expression of the effect produced upon him
by that awful vision which he saw. Finding, as it does,
its parallel in almost all manifestations of a divine, or
even an angelic, presence, it must be owned to contain a
mighty, because an instinctive witness for the sinfulness
of man's nature ; out of which it comes to pass that any
very near revelation from the heavenly world fills the
children of men, even the holiest among them, with
terror and amazement, yea, sometimes with the expecta-
tion of death itself. Examples innumerable make evident
that this holds true of good men quite as much as of bad
(Gen. iii. 8; xvii. 3; Exod. iii. 6; Num. xvi. 22; xxii.
31 ; Josh. v. 14; Judg. vi. 22; xiii. 6, 20, 22; I Chron.
xxi. 20 ; 2 Chron. vii. 3 ; Job iv. 12-15 5 xni- 5> 6 ; Isai.
vi. 5 ; Ezek. i. 28 ; iii. 23 ; xliii. 3 ; xliv. 4 ; Dan. vii. 1 5 ;
viii. 1 7 ; x. 7-9, 1 5 ; Tob. xii. 1 6 ; Matt. xvii. 6 ; xxviii. 4,
5 ; Mark xvi. 5,8; Luke i. 12, 29 ; ii. 9 ; v. 8 ; xxiv. 5 ;
John xviii. 6 ; Acts ix. 4 ; x. 4). The unholy, and all flesh
is such, cannot endure immediate contact with the holy,
the human with the divine. Heathen legend, so far as
the homage of its testimony may be accepted, consents
here with Christian truth. Semele must perish, if Jupiter
reveals himself to her in his glory, being consumed in the
brightness of that glory; cf. Exod. xxxiii. 18, 20: ' Thou
E
50 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [i. \J .
canst not see my face ; for there shall no man see Me,
and live.' And for examples in art of this overwhelming
terror as an accompaniment of all very near revelations of
the higher world, see such passages as these in Virgil, jEn.
ii. 774 ; iii. 29, 30 ; 47, 48 ; 175 ; iv. 279, 280 ; vii. 458,
459 ; xii. 867. For every man it is a dreadful thing to
stand face to face with God. The beloved disciple, who
looked upon, and whose hands had handled, the Word of
life (1 John i. 1), who had lain in his Lord's bosom in the
days of his flesh, could as little as any other endure the
revelation of his majesty, or do without that ' Fear not,''
with which that Lord at once reassures him.
' And He laid his right hand upon me, saying unto
me, Fear not.'' — ' Unto me ' should be omitted. This
same ' Fear not ' is uttered on similar occasions to Daniel
(x. 12), to Peter (Luke v. 1), to the Three at the Trans-
figuration, of whom John himself was one (Matt. xvii. 7) ;
to the holy women at the sepulchre (Matt, xxviii. 5 ; Mark
xvi. 6). Nor is this reassurance confined to words only ;
the Lord at the same time lays his hand upon him, —
something parallel to which goes along with more than
one ' Fear not ' of those referred to just now (cf. Jer. i. 9 ;
Isai. vi. 7) ; and from the touch of that hand the Seer
receives strength again, and is set, no doubt, upon his
feet once more (Ezek. i. 28 ; ii. 1,2; Acts xxvi. 16). The
right hand being ever contemplated in Scripture as the
hand of power alike for God (Deut. xxxiii. 2 ; Isai. xlviii.
13 ; Acts vii. 55) and for man (Gen. xlviii. 14 ; Zech. iii.
I ; Matt. v. 30), it is only fit that with the right hand of
the Lord he should be thus strengthened and revived (cf.
Isai. xli. 10).
' I am the first and the last.' — This prerogative is three
times claimed for the Lord Jehovah in Isaiah (xli. 4 ; xliv.
I. I 8.] INTRODUCTION, REV. I. 4-20. 51
6 ; xlviii. 1 2) ; and in like manner three times in this
Book (here, and ii. 8; xxii. 13). It is the expression of
absolute Godhead : * I am the first and the last, and
beside Me there is no God ' (Isai. xliv. 6). He is from
eternity to eternity, so that there is no room for any
other. All creation comes forth from Him (John i. 1-3),
all creation returns to Him again, as from whom and by
whom and to whom are all things. Not the semi-Socinian
expositors alone, as Grotius and Wetstein, but others
who lie under no such suspicion, Cocceius for instance, and
Vitringa, have here gone astray, making ' first ' to mean
the first in glory, and 'last' the last in humiliation ; 'I
am He who, being the foremost and first in all honour,
became the lowest and last in dishonour, sounding the
lowest depths of ignominy and shame.' This, which itself
is true (Phil. ii. 7, 8), is yet not the truth of this place.
That truth is nobly expressed in the comment of a medi-
eval theologian, Kichard of St. Victor, more than once
quoted already : ' Ego sum primus et novissimus. Primus
per creationem, novissimus per retributionem. Primus,
quia ante Me non est format us Deus ; novissimus, quia
post Me alius non erit. Primus, quia a Me sunt omnia ;
novissimus, quia ad Me sunt omnia ; a Me principio, ad
Me finem. Primus, quia Ego sum causa originis ; novissi-
mus, quia Ego judex et finis.'
Ver. 18. lI am He that liveth and was dead, and be-
hold, I am alive for evermore. Amen.'' — Translate rather
* And the living One, and I became dead, and behold, I
am living for evermore."1 Gain, as it appears to me, will
thus accrue to every clause of the sentence. In the first
place, Kai, connecting this verse so closely with the one
preceding, will have its rights, which are wholly overlooked
in our Version. Then 6 £cov expresses not so much that
E 2
52 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [i. 1 8.
He, the speaker, ' lived,' as that He was * the Living One,'
the Life (John i. 4 ; xiv. 6), avro^corj, having life in Him-
self, and being the fountain and source of life to others ;
0 tyjs airslpov irpvravis ^(jotjs, as Clement of Alexandria
grandly calls Him (Quis Div. Salv. 25). It is true
lhat in one sense it is the exclusive prerogative of the
Father to have life in Himself, but a prerogative which
He has communicated with the Son (John v. 26) ; of Him
too it maybe said, in the words of the Psalmist, irapa Sot
7T7?7>7 ^wrjs (Ps. xxxvi. 10, LXX.). To Him belongs abso-
lute being (ovrcos slvat), as contrasted with the illative
being of the creature, with the life which may be no life,
seeing that it inevitably falls under the dominion of cor-
ruption and death, so soon as it is separated from Him,
the source from which it was derived ; for others may
share, but He only hath, immortality ( I Tim. vi. 16), being
ovala addvaros, ov fierovaia (Theodoret). All this is
included in Christ's assertion here of Himself as 6 %<ov.
Being thus The Living One, He goes on to say, ' i" yet
became (syevoftTjv) dead ; I the source of all life stooped
even to taste of death.' Such is the second clause, and
then follows the glorious third. ' This state of death en-
dured for Me but for an instant. I laid down my life that
1 might take it again. I drank of the brook in the way,
and therefore have I lifted up my head (Ps. ex. 7); death
has now in Me been so swallowed up in life, that behold,
I am living for evermore.''
' And have the keys of hell and of death.' — We should
read rather ' of death and of hell,' for so all the best
MSS. and Versions have it, while the reading of our
Translation inverts the natural and logical order ; for it is
death which peoples hell or Hades ; it is a king Death who
makes possible a kingdom of the dead (vi. 8 ; xx. 13, 14);
I. 1 8.] INTRODUCTION, REV. I. 4-20. 53
for by ' hellS or Hades, this invisible kingdom or dominion
of the dead is intended, and that in all its extent, not
merely in one dark province of it, the region assigned to
the lost. Hengstenberg indeed affirms in his own con-
fident way that ' death'' here means the second death, and
as a consequence that ' hell,' or Hades, can mean only
gehenna ; observing that in the New Testament this
second death is alone set forth as an object of fear. But
why is it that the other death, itself the outward sign and
seal of God's extreme indignation against sin, has ceased
to be an object of terror, has been robbed for the faithful
of its sting? Why, except for that fact which we find
proclaimed in these words, namely, that the Son of God
has gone down into the dark realm of shadows and re-
turned from it again — and not this only, but returned
from it a conqueror, having overcome death, and burst,
like another Samson (Judg. xvi. 3), the gates of the city
of the grave which shut Him in ; and in pledge of this
having the keys uf both, the absolute Lord Avho opens and
shuts them at his will for all the children of men. For
myself I cannot doubt, above all when I look at the words
which immediately go before, that Christ sets Himself forth
here as the overcomer of death natural ; which it must
always be remembered is rather death unnatural ; for
man was made for immortality (Gen. ii. 17), and death
is the denial and reversal of the true law of his creation
(Rom. v. 12 ; Wisd. i. 13-16). He who is the Prince of
life is indeed but saying here what already He had been
bold to say, while the victory was yet unwon : ' I am the
Resurrection, and the Life' (John xi. 25); life, that is, in
conflict with death, and overcoming it. The keys are the
emblems of authority (cf. iii. 7) ; to have the keys is to
have the power of Himself going in and out as He pleases,
54 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [i. 1 8.
of admitting and excluding, shutting up and delivering
others : cf. Deut. xxxii. 39, ' I kill and I make alive ; '
and 1 Sam. ii. 6. The metaphor rests on the conception of
Hades as a city with walls and gates ; Christ had spoken
in his earthly life of the ' gates of hell ' (Matt. xvi. 1 8 ;
cf. Isai. xxxviii. 10; Job xxxviii. 17; Ps. cvii. 18).
Let me express here, before leaving this subject, the
regret which all who have thoughtfully compared our Ver-
sion with the original must feel that the one word ' hell'
covers in it two words so different in meaning as aSijs and
yssvva, the first ' Sheol,' the gathering-place of all de-
parted souls (Prov. xxvii. 20), the second the XifAvrj rov
irvpos of this Book (xix. 20 ; xx. 10), the final abode of
the lost. All must lament the manifold confusions which
out of this have arisen ; the practical loss, indeed, among
our people of any doctrine about Hades at all. In the
K. V. the error is corrected ; but who can measure the
years which must pass before the correction of the error
makes itself popularly felt among us, if ever it does this?
The relations of aSrjs to <yssvva, and also to irapdhsiaos,
are well put in this extract from a funeral sermon of
Jeremy Taylor : ' The word "AiBrjs signifies indefinitely
the state of separation, whether blessed or accursed ; it
means only " the invisible place," or the region of dark-
ness, whither whoso descends shall be no more seen. For
as among the heathens the Elysian fields and Tartara are
both sv "AiSov,1 so among the Jews and Christians para-
disus and gehenna are the distinct states of Hades.''
Compare Konig, Die Lehre von Christi Hollenfahrt, 1842,
1 As witness the lines of the comic poet :
Kai yap Kaff "Aiftijv 8vo Tpiflovs vo/xi^ofxev,
fiiav diKaiaov, ^arepav aaefitov 686v.
I. 19, 20.] INTRODUCTION, REV. I. 4.-20. 55
a very complete monograph on its subject ; and an article
Niedergefahren zur Holle, by Laible, in the Zeitschrift
fur Luth. Theol. 1863, pp. 22-92.
Ver. 19. ' Write the things vohich thou hast seen, and
the things which are, and the things which shall be here-
after? — It was certainly a piece of carelessness on the part
of our Translators to have omitted, which none of the pre-
vious translators had done, the ovv ('Write therefore'),
about the right of which to a place in the text no question
has been ever made. With what intention the illative
particle is used, is not so easy to determine ; perhaps it is
best referred to what goes immediately before : ' Seeing
that I am this mighty One, the first and last, who was
dead and am alive, do thou therefore write ; for the things
declared by Me are all steadfast and sure.'
Ver. 20. ' The mystery of the seven stars which thou
saivest in my right hand, and of the seven golden candle-
sticks. The seven stars are the Angels of the seven Churches,
and the seven candlesticks which thou saivest are the seven
Churches.'' — We may either regard the first sentence as
governed by the ' Write ' of the verse preceding ; so no
doubt our Translators, who place only a comma at the
conclusion of that verse ; or else, placing a full-stop there,
regard these words as a sort of nominative absolute, the
statement of the ' mystery? or spiritual riddle, of which
the solution follows in the latter half of the verse — a
distribution which to my mind seems preferable to the
other. — A ' mystery ' in the constant language of Scripture
is something which man is capable of knowing, but only
when it has been revealed to him by God (Matt. xiii. 1 1 ;
Rom. xi. 25 ; Ephes. vi. 19; I Cor. xiii. 2), and not through
any searching of his own. Thus ' mystery ' and ' revelation,'
fjbvarrjpLov and airoKuXv^ns, are correlative terms (Rom.
56 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [i. 20.
xvi. 25) ; and as in the former clauses of the present verse
there is the fivcmjpiov, so in the latter the cnroKaXvtyis
fxvcmjpiov. From this, the revelation of the mystery, we
learn that ' the seven stars are the Angels of the seven
Churches.' In all the typical language of Scripture stars
are symbols of lordship and authority, ecclesiastical or civil.
Thus a star is the symbol of the highest dominion of all :
'There shall come « Star out of Jacob' (Num. xxiv. 7) ;
and the actual birth of Him whom Balaam prophesied of
here, is announced by a star (Matt. ii. 2 ; cf. Isai. xiv. 12).
Faithful teachers are stars that shall shine for ever (Dan.
xii. 3); false teachers are wandering stars (Jude 13), or
stars which fall from heaven (Eev. viii. 10; vi. 13 ; xii. 4).
But only when we know exactly what ' the Angels of the
seven Churches ' mean, shall we feel perfectly sure that we
have interpreted the ' stars ' aright ; or rather that we have
apprehended aright the interpretation of them given here
by the Spirit.
These ' Angels ' have given rise to much discussion
and debate. Some have understood by them the heavenly
messengers who bear this name. They urge that, often
elsewhere in this Book as the word ' Angel ' recurs, it is
never employed in any other sense ; therefore that in these
we are to recognize the guardian Angels over the several
Churches, ' their Angels ; ' that if single persons had thus
their Angels (Matt, xviii. 10; cf. Acts xii. 15), much more
the same might be j)redicated of Churches (Dan. xii. I ).
Thus Origen {Horn. xiii. in Luc.) : ' Si audacter expedit
loqui Scripturarum sensum sequenti, per singulas Eccle-
sias bini sunt Episcopi, alius visibilis, alius invisibilis ; ille
visui carnis, hie sensui patens. Et quomodo homo, si
commissam sibi dispensationem bene egerit, laudatur a
Domino, si male, culpse et vitio subjacet, sic et Angelus.'
I. 20.] INTRODUCTION, REV. I. ZJ.-20. 57
And again {Horn. xx. in Num.) : ' Secundum ea qua? Jo-
hannes in Apocalypsi scribit, unicuiqueEcclesise generaliter
Angelus praeest, qui vel collaudatur pro bene gestis populi,
vel etiam pro delictis ejus culpatur. In quo etiam stu-
pendi mysterii admiratione permoveor, quod infantum Deo
cura de nobis sit, ut etiam Angelos suos culpari pro nobis
et confutari patiatur. Sic enim cum pgedagogo traditur
puer, si forte minus dignis, nee secundum paternam nobi-
litatem imbutus appareat disciplinis, continuo culpa ad
psedagogum refertur, nee ita puer a patre ut psedagogus
arguitur.' Cf. Jerome {In Mich. vi. I, 2), who here fol-
lows close in the footsteps of Origen.
The preoccupation of an obvious objection is in the
words just quoted ingeniously attempted, but not success-
fully accomplished. Indeed the objection is one which it
is impossible to surmount : this, namely, How could holy
Angels be charged with such delinquencies as are laid to
the charge of some of the Angels here (ii. 4 ; iii. 1, 15) ?
There are some good observations on this point in Au-
gustine (Ep. 43, § 22) : ' Angelo Ecclesire Ephesi scribe ;
Quod si de Angelo superiorum ccelorum, et non de prre-
positis Ecclesise vellet intelligi, non consequenter diceret :
Sed habeo adversum te, quod caritatem primam reliquisti.
Hoc de superioribus Angelis dici non potest, qui perpetuam
retinent caritatem, unde qui defecerunt et lapsi sunt, dia-
bolus est et angeli ejus.' Moreover, as Eothe well asks,
if these Angels are heavenly ones, what meaning would
the injunction ' Write ' in this case possess (Anfange der
Kirche, p. 423) ?
This then of the ' Angels ' meaning heavenly Angels
may certainly be dismissed. All which Alford has urged
in its favour will fail to produce any wide acceptance for
it. The Angel must be some person or persons in the
58 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. |_I. 20.
Church on earth, not one overlooking it from heaven. 1
say some person or persons, not as myself thinking it
possible that he can represent a plurality, but having in
view explanations which by some have been offered, and
on which something will need to be said.
But if some human person in the Church, who but the
chief shepherd, in other words, the bishop ? To whom
else would all which we here in these Epistles find ascribed
to the Angel apply ? For myself, I cannot but think that
the argument for the existence of the episcopate in the
later apostolic times, and that as a divinely recognized
institution, which may be drawn from the position of the
Angels in the several Churches, and from the language
in which they are addressed, is exceedingly strong. The
Angel in each Church is one ; but surely none can sup-
pose for an instant that there was only one presbyter, or
other minister serving in holy things, for the whole flour-
ishing Church of Ephesus, or of Smyrna ; and that we are
in this way to account for the single Angel of the several
Churches. Thirty years before this time St. Paul had
uttered his parting words at Miletus to the elders of the
Ephesian Church (Acts xx. 17), and certainly addressed
them even then as many (ver. 25). Taking into account
what we know of the spread of the Christian faith in these
parts during the intermediate time, it is probable that
their number was at this time largely increased. And
yet, numerous as by this time the presbyters must have
been, there is only one Angel in each of these Churches.
What can he be but a bishop? — a bishop too with the
prerogatives which we ascribe to one. His preeminence
cannot be explained away, as though he had been merely
a ruling elder, primus inter pares, with only such authority
and jurisdiction as the others, his peers, may have agreed
I. 20.] INTRODUCTION, REV. I. 4-2O. 59
to lend him. For the great Bishop of souls who is here
on his spiritual visitation, everywhere holds the Angel
responsible for the spiritual condition of his Church ; for
the false teaching which he has not put down, for the false
teachers whom he has not separated off from the communion
of the faithful, — in short, for every disorder in doctrine or
discipline which has remained unrepressed. But Christ
could not so deal with them, could not charge them per-
sonally with these negligences and omissions, unless upon
the ground that they had been clothed with power and
authority sufficient to prevent them, so that these evils
could only exist through their neglect or connivance.
I am very far from affirming that bishops were com-
monly called Angels in the primitive Church ; or called so
at all, except with a more or less conscious reference to this
use of the word in the Apocalypse. There is a certain
mysteriousness, and remoteness from the common language
of men, in the adoption of this term, and such there is
intended to be. It belongs to the enigmatic symbolic
character of the Book, elevated in its language throughout
above the level of daily life. Those to whom this title is
ascribed are herein presented to the Church as clothed with
a peculiar dignity, and are herein themselves reminded
that they stand before One, whose ministries of grace and
love they should be swift to fulfil on earth, even as those
whose names they bear are swift to fulfil them in heaven.
There is then a certain, though very partial right in what
Origen taught ; and ' Angel ' is a heavenly title here ;
but a heavenly title which has been borrowed by earth,
which has been transferred and applied to men ; a transfer
not without its analogies in the Old Testament (Eccles.
v. 6 ; Hagg. i. 13 ; Mai. ii. 7 ; iii. 1) ; and rendered more
easy by the fact that Angel is a name not designating the
60 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [i. 20.
personality, but only the office, of those heavenly beings
by whom it properly is borne. Thus the author of the
Commentary once ascribed to Augustine: 'Nam quia etiam
Angelas nuntius interpretatur, quicumque aut episcopus,
aut presbyter, aut etiam laicus frequenter de Deo loquitur,
et quomodo ad vitam seternam perveniatur annunciat,
merito angelus Dei dicitur.'
It is nothing wonderful that those who maintain the
government of the Church to have been presbyterian at
the first, and who see in the episcopate a result of declen-
sion from apostolic purity, and of the springing up of a
sinful cf)iXo7rpa)TSv£iv (3 John 9) in the Church, should
refuse to accept these conclusions. At the same time
they are far from being at one in the method whereby
they have sought to escape the argument for primitive
episcopacy which we believe that we are here justified in
finding-
Thus some affirm that the Angel is not any one person,
but stands for and represents the whole body of the
wposaTwrss, the collective presbytery, contemplated and
addressed as this single person. So for the most part the
early anti-episcopal Protestants, Brightman for example.
That such commentators as Hengstenberg have been able
to satisfy themselves with such an explanation, has always
filled me with wonder. The mere statement that the
Angel means ' das gesammte Kirchenregiment ' (his own
words), seems to involve its own condemnation. Vitringa
{De Synag. Vet. p. 91 1) with more candour mentions this
explanation only to reject it, and finds a clear testimony
here for the superior dignity of one in these several
Churches ; though naturally the episcopate which he thus
recognizes is of the mildest form, of the Ussherian type ;
and Beza in like manner glosses t&5 ayysXw, i. e. irpoe-
I. 20.] INTRODUCTION, REV. I. 4~20. 61
a-ToiTi ; though, curiously enough, he considers that the
upgrowth of the tyrannous hierarchy of Eome is evidence
sufficient that, however there were these 7rposar(OTSs in
the apostolic Churches, it was never intended of God
that such should always continue.
But those who are determined that at any rate there
shall be no bishop here, are not all agreed among them-
selves how they shall get rid of him ; and this resolving of
the Angel into a presbyterian board has appeared to some,
to Ebrard for instance, so poor an escape from the em-
barrassment, that they have devised another, but if possi-
ble a poorer still. The explanation they offer rests on the
entirely gratuitous assumption that the seven Churches
had sent their messengers to St. John at Patmos, therefore
called the 'Angels (cf. Luke ix. 52) of the Churches? as
having been sent by them. These in these Epistles are
now successively addressed, that they may carry back his
word, or rather the word of Christ, to the congregations
from which they had been deputed. But in answering a
letter by a messenger, men write by him, they do not
usually write to him ; nor is it easy to see where is the
correspondency between such messengers, subordinate offi-
cials of the Churches, and stars; or what the ' mystery ,
of the relation between them then would be ; or how the
Lord should set forth as an eminent prerogative of his,
that He held the seven stars, that is, the seven messengers,
in his right hand (ii. 1). The scheme breaks down at
every point, and among many lame and impotent ex-
planations must needs be regarded as the lamest and most
impotent of all.
I will take the opportunity of a pause between this, the
Introduction to the seven Epistles, and the seven Epistles
62 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [i. 20.
themselves, to say a few needful words on the mystery of
the number seven ; which only I have left unsaid so long,
because unwilling to interrupt the exposition by any thing
in the shape of a dissertation ; not to say that I found it
difficult to attach particularly to any one of those impor-
tant sevens which have already occurred, considerations
which properly belonged to them all.
Even the most careless reader of the Apocalypse must
be struck with the manner in which almost every thing
there is ordered by sevens. Thus, besides the seven
Churches, and their seven Angels, we have already in this
first chapter the seven Spirits (ver. 4), the seven candle-
sticks (ver. 12), the seven stars (ver. 16) ; and further on,
seven lamps of fire (iv. 4), seven seals (v. 1), seven horns
and seven eyes of the Lamb (v. 6), seven heavenly Angels
with their seven trumpets (viii. 2), seven thunders (x. 3),
seven heads of the dragon, and seven crowns upon these
heads (xii. 3 ), the same of the beast rising out of the sea
(xiii. 1), seven last plagues (xv. 1), seven vials (xv. 7),
seven mountains (xvii. 9), seven kings (xvii. 10) ; not to
speak of other recurrences, not so obvious, of this number
seven as the signature of the Book ; as, for instance, the
distribution of the entire Book into seven visions, the seven-
fold ascription of glory to the Lamb (v. 12), and to Grod
(vii. 12).
But indeed the recurrence, and, I shall seek to
show, the symbolic dignity of the number seven runs
through the whole of Scripture from first to last, — to say
nothing of the echoes of this sense of its significance which
abound in every religion of heathendom ; l and if this is
1 ' Die allgemeine Heiligkeit der Siebenzahl kaben die Alten schon
in alien Beziehungen bemerkt ' (Oreuzer, Symbolik, vol. ii. p. 161,
where see a large collection of the literature on tbe subject).
I. 20.] INTRODUCTION, RET. I. 4~20. 63
more strongly marked in the Apocalypse than in any other
book of Scripture, it is only that this, like so much else,
has culminated here. Should it be asked, What is the
special significance, and what the sacredness and peculiar
dignity of seven, and of what is it the signature ? the
answer is not very hard to give. A careful induction from
all the passages where this number cannot be regarded as
fortuitous, but is evidently of Divine ordinance and ap-
pointment (I call fortuitous such sevens as occur, Acts xix.
14 ; xx. 6), will leave no doubt that it claims throughout
Scripture to be considered as the covenant number, the
sign and signature of God's covenant relation to man-
kind, and above all to that portion of mankind with which
this relation is not potential merely, but actual, namely,
the Church.
The evidences of this reach back to the very beginning.
We meet them first in the hallowing of the seventh day,
in pledge and token of the covenant of God with man
(Gen. ii. 3 ; cf. Ezek. xx. 12).1 So too circumcision, being
the sign of a covenant, is accomplished on the eighth, or
after seven days (Gen. xvii. 12 ; Lev. xii. 3). And as
seven is the signature of God's covenant with man, so of
all man's covenants with his fellows, resting as these do,
and must, on the anterior covenant with God ; thus of
treaties of peace (Gen. xx. 20), of marriages (Judg. xiv.
1 It was therefore a true instinct of hatred against a divine insti-
tution which led those who in the first French Revolution proclaimed
the abolition of the Christian religion, to make war also on the Chris-
tian week, the distribution of time by sevens, and to substitute that
by decades in its stead. They felt that here was a witness for God
in the world, a witness that He was the measurer out of our times to
us, and of our duty to sanctify to Him the times that He had thus
measured out, which must not be allowed to continue.
64 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [i. 20.
12). Nor should it be left unnoticed that the word seven
is bound up in the Hebrew word signifying an oath, or a
covenant confirmed with an oath. Seven is the number of
sacrifice, by aid of which the covenant, once established, is
continually maintained in its first vigour and strength, and
the relations between (rod and man, which sin is evermore
disturbing, and threatening to bring to an end, are restored
(1 Kin. viii. 65 ; 2 Chron. xxix. 21 ; Job xlii. 8 ; cf. Num.
xxiii. 1, 14, 29). It is the number of purification and
consecration, as the fruit of the sacrifice (Lev. iv. 6, 17;
viii. 11, 33 ; xiv. 9, 51 ; xvi. 14, 19 ; Num. xix. 12, 19),
of forgiveness (Matt, xviii. 21, 22 ; Luke xvii. 4). Then,
again, seven is the number of every grace ^ and benefit
bestowed upon Israel ; these being thus marked as flowing
out of the covenant and resulting from it (2 Kin. iv. 35).
The priests compass Jericho seven days, and on the seventh
day seven times, that all Israel may know that the city is
given into their hands by their Grod ; and that its conquest
is a direct and immediate result of their covenant relation
to Him (Josh. vi. 4, 15, 16 ; Heb. xi. 30). It is the num-
ber of reward to those that are faithful in the covenant
(Deut. xxviii. 7; 1 Sam. ii. 5 ; Prov. xxiv. 16; Ecclus.
xxxii. 13); of punishment to those who are fro ward in
the covenant (Lev. xxvi. 21, 24, 28; Num. xii. 14, 15 ;
Deut. xxviii. 25 ; 2 Sam. xii. 18; xxi. 6; xxiv. 13), or
to those who injure the people in it (Gen. iv. 15, 24;
Ps. lxxix. 12 ; Exod. vii. 25); or again of punishment,
regarded in the light of a making of amends, a readjusting
of the disturbed balances of justice, and so a restoring of
harmony between the sinner and the outraged law of God
(Prov. vi. 31 ; Ecclus. vii. 3 ; xl. 8). All the feasts, as is
obvious, are ordered by seven, or else by seven multiplied
into seven (7x7), and so made intenser still. Thus, not to
I. 20.] INTRODUCTION, REV. I. 4~20. 65
recur again to the Sabbath, the mother of all feasts, it is
with the Passover (Exod. xii. 15, 16), the feast of weeks
(Deut. xvi. 9), of tabernacles (Deut. xvi. 13, 15), the
sabbath-year (Lev. xxv. 2,3; Deut. xv. 1 ), and the jubilee
(Lev. xxv. 8) ; 1 thus also with Solomon's feast of dedication
(i Kin. viii. 65 ; cf. 2 Chron. xxx. 22, 23).
Further we may observe that wherever God is at work
in the history of other nations outside of the covenant,
while yet He would make it plainly to appear that it is for
Israel's sake, and having respect to the covenant, that He
is so working, this signature of seven in his dealing with
those nations is never wanting. Thus it is the number of
the years of plenty and of the years of famine, in sign
that these were sent not so much for Egypt's sake, as for
Israel's, and as conducing to the divine preparation through
which the chosen people were to pass (Gen. xli. 26, 27).
Naaman is to wash in Jordan seven times, that he may
acknowledge in the God of Israel the author of his cure
(2 Kin, v. 10). Seven times pass over Nebuchadnezzar,
that he may learn in his abasement that the God of his
Jewish captives is indeed the King over all the earth
(Dan. iv. 16, 23, 25). But the subject is inexhaustible,
the significance of the number seven meeting us at every
turn in Scripture. When St. Jude reminds us that Enoch,
in whom the patriarchal piety reached its highest bloom,
was * the seventh from Adam ' (ver. 14), it is surely some-
thing more than a mere genealogical notice which he is
giving ; 2 as certainly it is not by accident that in Lamech,
1 See Philo, De Sentenario, De Abrah. § 5 ; and again Legg. Alleg.
§ 4, the passage beginning xa'LP*1 h <}>vo-is e@80fj.d81, and indeed his
works, throughout, on the Upa f@80fj.ds, as he constantly calls it.
Compare Gfrorer, Alexandr. Theosoph. vol. ii. pp. 98 sqq.
2 Gregory of Nyssa (In Verb. Faciam Horn. Orat. 2) : "E@80fj.os
F
66 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [i. 20.
he too the seventh from Adam, the impiety of the apostate
race of Cain reached its highest height (Gen. iv. 23). Who
again will venture to affirm it an accident that there are
seven beatitudes, seven petitions in the Lord's Prayer,
that the parables in Matthew xiii. are seven, that the woes
denounced in twenty-third chapter of St. Matthew against
the Pharisees are seven,1 that the Lord spake seven words
from his cross, that by seven words He brought his discourse
with the Samaritan woman to its glorious termination
(John iv. 7, 10, 13, 16, 18, 21, 26) ? St. Matthew ascribes
such a virtue to the number, that, as might almost seem,
he employs a certain violence that he may distribute our
Lord's genealogy into three groups of fourteen, that is, of
double sevens (i. 17).
Leaving then the fact, which is sufficiently evident, let
us inquire into the reason of the fact. To the question,
Why does seven take this place, what are the grounds of
its adoption to this high dignity and honour, the answer is
not very difficult to give. It is true that in all speculations
upon numbers we may very profitably lay to heart the wise
caution of Fuller,2 clothed, as is ever the case with his
wisdom, in witty words : ' For matter of numbers fancy is
never at a loss, like a beggar never out of his way, but
hath some haunts where to repose itself. But such as in
expounding of Scripture reap more than Grod did sow there,
never eat what they reap thence, because such grainless
husks, when seriously threshed out, vanish all into chaff.'
anb yevecreats ovk ei$e Gavarov 'Efo>x, fivarrjpiov cKKkrjalas. He has
much of interest on the mystery of seven.
1 In our Authorized Version they are eight ; hut the woe of verse
14 has heen brought here by transcribers, who have transferred it from
Mark xii. 40 and Luke xx. 47. It has here no proper place.
2 A Pisgah Sight of Palestine, b. iii. c. 6.
I. 20.] INTRODUCTION, REV. I. 4--20. 67
And yet I feel very sure that in this matter which is now
before us, we need not fear lest we should be threshing
barren ears, with only chaff for our pains.
To the question then asked above it may be replied by
first calling attention to the fact that the number seven
results from the combination of three and four ; for we
may observe that whenever this sacred seven falls of itself,
or is divided, into two groups, it is never into five and two,
or six and one ; but always into three and four, or four and
three; thus the Lord's Prayer (Matt. vi. 9-15) contains
three sv^ai, having to do with the glory of God, and four
alrrjfiara, relating to the needs of men ; while on the
other hand the seven parables of Matthew xiii. are divided
into groups ; first of four, spoken on the sea-side and to
the multitude (ver. 1), and then of three, spoken after a
considerable pause in the house and to the disciples (ver.
36). It is the same in this Book with the trumpets (viii.
13), and the vials (xvi. 3-7). But can it be shown that
this three and four in Scripture have severally any sym-
bolic significance of their own ? Assuredly yes : three,
the signature of God ; four, that of the world ; and thus
seven, or these numbers brought into contact and relation,
the token and signature of the covenant between the
two.
That three is the number of God, of the ever-blessed
Trinity, this of itself needs no proof. And it is so recog-
nized in Scripture. There are vestiges of this in the Old
Testament ; in the three mysterious angel-visitors who ap-
pear to Abraham in the plains of Mamre (Gen. xviii. 1 )
in the blessing as from three distinct persons, Num. vi.
24-26 ; in the Trisagion of Isai. vi. 3 ; in the prominent
position assumed throughout by the Angel of the Covenant,
hereafter to be acknowledged as the second Person of the
68 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [i. 20.
Trinity ; in the often mention not of God, but of the Spirit
of God, hereafter to be acknowledged as the third Person
therein (Gen. i. 2 ; Ps. li. 1 1 ). These footprints of the
Trinity are purposely more or less obscure, and only clear
when they are traced in the light of a later revelation ;
for the office of the Church of the Old Testament was to
guard the truth oijthe unity of the Godhead, not to de-
clare the Trinity ; which, indeed, so long as polytheism
was not overcome, but still had its roots even in the
minds and hearts of the chosen people itself, could not yet
have been safely declared. Here is explanation amply
sufficient of the reserve with which the number three is
employed in the Old Testament as the signature of Deity ;
the reason why this is only perfectly plain and clear in the
New (Matt, xxviii. 19 ; I John v. 7).
Four, the next number to three, and growing imme-
diately out of it, is the signature of the world — of the
world, not indeed as a rude undigested mass, but as a
kogt/aos, as the revelation, so far as nature can be the re-
velation, of God. Four is stamped everywhere on this
organized world. Thus, not to speak of the four elements,
the four seasons, neither of which are recognized in Scrip-
ture, we have there the four winds (Ezek. xxxvii. 9 ; Dan.
vii. 2 ; Matt. xxiv. 3 1 ; Eev. vii. I ) ; the four corners of the
earth (Isai. xi. 12 ; Ps. cvii. 3 ; Rev. vii. I ; xx. 8) ; the
four living creatures, emblems of all creaturely life (Rev.
iv. 6), and each of these with four faces and four wings
(Ezek. i. 5, 6) ; the four beasts coming up from the sea,
and representing the four great world-empires which in
the providence of God should succeed one another (Dan.
vii. 3 ) ; the four metals composing the image which sets
forth the same phases of empire (Dan. ii. 32, 33) ; the
four forms of the judgments of God, namely the sword,
I. 20.] INTRODUCTION, REV. I. 4-20. 69
the famine, the pestilence, the wild beasts (Eev. vi. 8 ;
Jer. xv. 3) ; the four Gospels, or the four- sided Gospel
(svayysXiov rsrpd<y(ovov, as one called it of old), in sign of
its destination for all the world ; the sheet tied at the four
corners (Acts x. II ; xi. 5);1 the four carpenters, and the
four horns, the sum total of the forces of the world as
arrayed against the Church (Zech. i. 18, 20) ; the enume-
ration, wherever this is wished to be exhaustive, of the in-
habitants of the world by four, kindreds, tongues, peoples,
and nations (Eev. v. 9 ; cf. vii. 9 ; x. 11; xi. 9 ; xiv. 6 ;
xvii. 15). For other significant enumerations by four, see
Ezek. xiv. 21 ; Matt. xv. 31 ; Kev. vi. 8 ; John v. 3. Of
the number twelve, which is also obtained by aid of three
and four, but by these in another combination (not as
3 + 4, but as 3x4=12) there is no need here to speak.
It is only in later parts of the Book that its full signi-
ficance appears (vii. 5 ; xxi. 12 ; xxii. 2, and elsewhere).
There are reasons then amply sufficient why seven, be-
ing thus, as it is, made up of three and four, should be
itself the signature of the covenant. No mere accident or
caprice dictated the selection of it. And if this be the
number of the covenant, then we can account for its con-
stant recurrence in this Book ; for admitting, as few would
refuse to do, that the idea of God's covenant with his
Church as the key to all history, comes to its head in the
Apocalypse, it is nothing wonderful that this Book should
be more markedly ordered by seven, and have this num-
1 Augustine {Enarr. in Ps. ci. Sertn. iii.) : ' Discus qui quatuor
lineis continebatur orbis terrarum erat in quatuor partibus. Has
quatuor partes seepe Seriptura commemorat, orientem et occidentem,
aquilonem et meridiem. Ideo quia totus orbis per Evangelium voca-
batur, quatuor Evangelia conscripta sunt.'
70 EPISTLES TO THE SETEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [i. 20.
ber stamped upon it even more strongly, than any other
portion of Scripture.1
1 On this whole subject of the symbolic worth and dignity of
numbers in Scripture, see Biihr, Symbolik des Mas. Cultus, vol. i.
pp. 128-209; Ziillig, Offenb. Johannis Erkliirt, vol. i. pp. 115-127;
Delitzsch, Genesis, 2nd edit. p. 225; in Herzog, Encyclopcedie, art.
Zahlen; and Kurtz, Theoll. Stud. u. Krit. 1844, pp. 315-370.
THE SEVEN EPISTLES.
Kev. ii. iii.
Before proceeding to consider these seven Epistles in de-
tail, it may be well worth while to invite the reader's atten-
tion to the symmetry, to what we should call in any human
composition the remarkable art, to be traced in the con-
struction of them all : quite justifying the words of
Henry More : ' There never was a book penned with that
artifice as this of the Apocalypse.' They are all constructed
precisely on the same model. They every one of them
contain —
a. A command in exactly the same terms to the Seer
that he should write to the Angel of the Church.
/3. One or more glorious titles which Christ claims for
Himself, as exalting the dignity of his person, and thus
adding weight and authority to the message which He
sends ; these titles being in almost every case drawn more
or less evidently from the attributes ascribed to Him, or
claimed by Him, in the manifestation of Himself which
has just gone before (i. 4-20).
7. The actual message from Christ to the Angel of the
Church, declaring his intimate knowledge of its condition,
good, or bad, or mixed, with a summons to steadfastness
in the good, to repentance from the evil — all this brought
home by the fact that He was walking up and down in
72 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [il. III.
the midst of his Churches, having in readiness to punish,
and also no less to reward.
8. A promise to the faithful, to him that should ' over-
come'— the heavenly blessedness being presented under
the richest variety of the most attractive, and often the
most original, images.
s. Finally, the whole is summed up with an exhorta-
tion which shall give an universal character to these par-
ticular addresses, a summons to every one with a spiritual
ear that he should give earnest heed to the things which
were indeed spoken to all. In the addresses to the four
last Churches the positions of 8 and s are reversed.
On comparing these Epistles one with another, we may
observe that in two Churches, namely in Smyrna and
Philadelphia, the great Shepherd and Bishop of souls finds
matter only for praise ; in two, Sardis and Laodicea, with
very smallest exception in the former, matter only for
rebuke. In three of the Churches, Ephesus, Pergamum,
and Thyatira, the spiritual condition is a mixed one, so
that with some things to praise, there are also some, more
in one, fewer in another, to condemn. It will be perceived
at once what far-looking provision is made in the selection
of these particular Churches to be addressed, as in the
scheme of the addresses to them, for the most varied in-
structions ; for reproof, for praise, for reproof and praise
mingled together and tempering one another ; for pro-
mises and threatenings. The spiritual condition of the
several Churches gives room and opportunity, nay, consti-
tutes a necessity, for each and all of these.
I take this opportunity of mentioning that one who
probably knew by experience how easily we lose sight of
the fact that it is Christ Himself who speaks in these
II. III.] THE SEVEN EPISTLES. 73
Epistles — Thomas Allen is his name — has written a book
not further known to me, but with the following title :
The Christian's Sure Guide to Eternal Glory, or Living
Oracles of the Lord Jesus Christ from Heaven in his
Royal Embassy to the Seven Churches of Asia, 8vo.,
London, 1733. Certainly the title promises well, and
seems to invite a closer acquaintance with the body of
the book.
EPISTLE TO THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS.
Rev. ii. 1-7.
Ver. 1. ' Unto the Angel of the Church of Ephesus
write? — Ephesus, the chief city of Ionia, irpu>TT) ttjs
'Acrlas, as the Ephesians themselves styled it, asserting
in this style that primacy for Ephesus which Smyrna and
Pergamum disputed with it, had now so far outstripped
both its competitors that it was at once the civil and
ecclesiastical centre of that ' Asia ' with which we have to
do. Wealthy, prosperous, and magnificent, ' Asise lumen,'
as it was called, a meeting-place of oriental religions and
Greek culture, and famous on many grounds in heathen
antiquity, it was most famous of all for the celebrated
temple of Diana, one of the seven wonders of the world,
about which in Acts xix. we read so much (cf. Creuzer's
Symbolik, vol. ii. p. 515; Wood's Discoveries at Ephesus ;
Edinburgh Revieiv, Jan. 1877 ; Lewin's St. Paul, vol. i.
p. 320 sqq. ; Falkener's Ephesus and the Temple of Diana ;
Kenan's St. Paul, p. 333 sqq.).1 But Ephesus had better
1 For more about Ephesus, see Bishop Alexander's Introduction
to the First Epistle of John {Speakers Bible, vol. iv. p. 275).
II. I.] EPIIESUS, REV. II. I-1/. 75
titles of honour than these. It was a city greatly
favoured of God. St Paul laboured there during three
years (Acts xx. 31); he ordained Timothy to be bishop
there (I Tim. i. 3; cf. Eusebius, H. E. iii. 4) ; Aquila,
Priscilla, Apollos (Acts xviii. 19, 24, 26), Tychicus (Ephes.
vi. 21), all contributed to build up the Church in that
city. And if we may judge from St. Paul's Epistle to the
Ephesians, and from his parting address to the elders of
that Church (Acts xx. 17-38), nowhere did the word of
the Gospel find a kindlier soil, strike root more deeply, or
bear fairer fruits of faith and love. St. John too had
made it the chief seat of his ministry, his metropolitan
throne, during the closing years of his protracted life ;
from whence he exercised a wide, though not wholly un-
questioned, jurisdiction (for see 3 Ep. 9, 10) over the
whole of 'Asia.' How early that ministry there began
it is impossible to say, the date of his withdrawal from
Jerusalem being itself uncertain, and uncertain also
whether he at once chose Ephesus for the middle point of
his spiritual activity. From a Church to which so much
was given, much would be required. How far it had
profited as it might by these signal advantages, how far
it had maintained itself at those spiritual heights to
which it had once attained, will presently be seen.
' These things saith He that holdeth the seven stars in
his right hand.'' — Cf. i. 20, where ' the mystery of the
seven stars ' is unfolded. It is only when all the titles
furnished by chap. i. 4-20 are exhausted, that Christ
seeks them from any other quarter. At the same time
there is a significant alteration here. There He is 6 s^cov,
' He that hath ' — here more emphatically 0 Kparwv, ' He
that holdeth, the seven stars ' — this being stronger and
more emphatic than that, ' He that holdeth ' (cf. ii. 25 ;
76 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [ll. 2.
iii. 14), than ' He that hath.'' Christ holds these stars in
his grasp, — an announcement full of comfort for them, if
only they are true to Him ; none shall pluck them out of
his hand (John x. 28) ; none shall harm them in the
delivery of their message (Matt. x. 30 ; Acts xviii. 9, 10);
or if the malice of their enemies is so far permitted that
they are able to kill the body, they shall only in this way
prepare for them an earlier and a speedier passage to
glory (Acts vii. 56, 60; Eev. xi. 7, 12) ; but an announce-
ment full of fear for the unfaithful, for the idol shepherds
(Zech. xi. 17), who feed themselves and not the flock
(Ezek. xxxiv. 1-10). Them too He holds in his grasp,
and none can deliver them from his hand.
' Who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candle-
sticks.'— ' Who walketh ' is new. The Seer had indeed
already beheld the Lord ' in the midst of the seven candle-
sticks' (i. 13), but not ' walking' in their midst. The
word expresses the unwearied activity of Christ in his
Church, moving up and down in the midst of it ; be-
holding the evil and the good ; evermore trimming and
feeding with oil of grace the golden lamps of the sanc-
tuary. Marckius : ' Ad innuendam clarius perpetuitatem
actus et curam Christi contra conatus oppositos Satanse.'
It is impossible not to admire the appropriateness of these
titles, expressing as they do the broader and more general
relations of Christ to his Church, for the first Epistle in
this series ; which constitutes, as this and a thousand
other tokens declare, not an accidental aggregate, but a
divinely-ordered complex, with all its parts mutually up-
holding and completing one another.
Ver. 2. lI know thy ivorks.' — In considering these
and all the following words of Christ, we must never leave
out of sight what an old interpreter has so well expressed,
II. 2.] EPHESUS, RET. II. I- J. 77
' unam facit Angeli Ecclesiaeque personam.' Any attempt
to distinguish between them is futile, and contrary to the
intention of the Lord. This formula, ' / knoiv thy ivories,
is common to all the Epistles, serving as the introduction
to all; — which being so, ' works ' are not, as some inter-
preters understand them, good works ; for Christ uses
this language where there were no works which He could
count good (iii. 15); as little are they bad works (iii. 8);
but the word is used with the same freedom here as in
other parts of Scripture, now for good (John vii. 2 1 ; I Cor.
iii. 14), and now for evil (Isai. lxvi. 18 ; I Cor. iii. 15 ;
Tit. i. 16). ' I know thy ivories J therefore has another
intention than to express either praise or blame. It de-
clares the omniscience of Him who walks up and down
amoug the candlesticks of gold, whom nothing escapes
(Amos iv. 13 ; Ps. xi. 4, 5 ; John ii. 24, 25 ; Heb. iv. 13 ;
Kev. ii. 23 ; Acts i. 24 ; xv. 8) ; an assurance of comfort
and strength for all them who, amid infinite weaknesses
and failures, are yet able to say, ' Search me, 0 Lord, and
know my heart ; try me, and know my thoughts, and see if
there be any wicked way in me ' (Ps. exxxix. 23, 24), or with
St. Peter, ' Lord, Thou knowest all things, Thou knowest
that I love thee ' (John xxi. 17) ; but words full of terror
and alarm for every one who would fain keep back any-
thing in his outer or inner life from the Lord. All things
are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom
we have to do (Heb. iv. 13) ; and this in these words He
declares.
' And thy labour, and thy patience.'' — There was an
earlier Angel of this same Church of Ephesus, on whom
as on his son St. Paul had urged that he should not fail
in this 'labour and patience'' {2 Tim. ii. 24,25); and
Christ's commendation here shows that the holy lesson
78 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [il. 2.
had been laid to heart by him who had now stept into his
place. The kottos, occasioned probably by the earnest
resistance which it was necessary to oppose to the false
teachers in the Ephesian Church, would naturally fall
chiefly on the bishop and presbyters — above all, on the
first. — Kottos and KOTridco are frequently used in reference
both to apostolic and ministerial labours (Rom. xvi. 12 ;
1 Cor. xv. 10; Gal. iv. 11); kottos often in connexion
with /i6%dos (1 Thess. ii. 9; 2 Thess. iii. 8; 2 Cor. xi.
27} ; the latter perhaps marking the toil on the side of
the magnitude of the obstacles which it has to surmount,
as the derivation /xoyts, and the possible connexion with
/j,syas, seems to suggest (Ellicott) ; the former alluding to
the toil and suffering which in these labours strenuously
and faithfully performed is involved. Thus see my
Synonyms of the New Testament, § 102. For indeed
this word kottos, signifying as it does not merely labour,
but labour unto tveariness, may suggest some solemn
reflections to every one who at all affects to be working
for his Lord, and as under his great Taskmaster's eye,
and as looking for his ' Well done.' This is what Christ
expects, this is what Christ praises, in his servants. But
how often does labour, which esteems itself labour for
Him, stop very short of this, take care for itself that it
shall never arrive at this point ; and perhaps in our days
none are more tempted continually to measure out to
themselves tasks too light and inadequate, than those to
whom an office and ministry in the Church has been com-
mitted. Indeed, there is here to them an ever-recurring
temptation, derived from the fact that they do for the most
part measure out their own day's task to themselves.
Others in almost every other calling or profession have
this measured out to them ; if not the zeal, earnestness,
II. 2.] EPHESUS, REV. II. I-/. 79
sincerity which they are to put into the performance of it,
yet at any rate its form and frame, the amount of time
which they shall devote to it, and often the definite
amount of work which they shall accomplish. It is not
so with us. We give to it exactly the number of hours
which we please ; we are for the most part responsible to
no man ; and when toilers thus apportion their own
burdens, and do this day after day, how near the danger
lies that they should unduly spare themselves, and make
their burdens far lighter than they should have been.
We may well keep this word K07ros, and all that it signi-
fies, namely labour unto weariness, in mind ; and remem-
ber ever that it is this which the Lord praises and allows.
— For virofiovrj see p. 22.
' And how thou canst not bear them which are evil.' —
Christ has good things to say of the Church of Ephesus,
and He who, as highest Love, avy^acpst 777 aXrjOsia, has
pleasure in and with the truth (1 Cor. xiii. 6), dwells on
these good things first ; He graciously puts in the fore-
most place all which He can find to approve ; and only
after this has received its meed of praise, notes the short-
comings which He is also compelled to rebuke. Many
graces had decayed at Ephesus ; of this we may be sure ;
seeing that the grace of all graces, namely, love, had
decayed (ver. 4) ; but in the midst of this decay there
survived an earnest hatred of certain evil-doers and evil
deeds. The Kaicoi here are not exactly equivalent to the
kcikoI ipydrai of Phil. iii. 2. These last are the promi-
nent workers of mischief in the Church, false apostles,
false prophets, and the like ; but the Katcoi will include
the whole rabble of evil-doers as well. It is not a little
remarkable that the grace or virtue here ascribed to the
Angel of the Ephesian Church, and still more strongly
80 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [il. 2.
at ver. 6, should have a name in later heathen Greek,
fu<ro7rov7)pia (Plutarch, Quom. Am. ah Adul. 12), the
person of whom the grace is predicated being fj,ia-o7r6vr}pos,
while neither of these words, nor yet any equivalent to
them, occurs in the N. T. This is the stranger, as this
hatred of evil purely as evil, however little thought of, or
admired now, is eminently a Christian grace (Rom. xii. 9 :
cf. Gen. xxxvii. 2 ; xlix. 6 ; Ps. cxxxix. 2 1 ; 2 Pet. ii. 7,
8). The sphere in which the Angel of Ephesus had the
chief opportunity of manifesting a holy intolerance of evil-
doers was, no doubt, that of Church-discipline, separating
off from fellowship with the faithful those who named the
name of Christ, yet would not depart from iniquity (2 Tim.
ii. 19). The infirmities, even the sins, of weak brethren,
are burdens which may be borne, nay, which those that
are spiritual are commanded to bear (cf. Gal. vi. 2, where
the same word fiao-rd&iv is used) ; but these offenders
here are not weak brethren, but false ; and there must
be no such toleration of them (Ps. ci. 7, 8 ; cxix. 115;
1 Cor. v. 11).
' And thou hast tried them which say they are apostles
and are not, and hast found them liars^ — We translate
by the same word the irsipd^siv here and the So/ci/xd^siv
of 1 John iv. 1. What this Angel at Ephesus had done,
and effectually done, St. John there bids the faithful to do
— namely, to prove the spirits of those who came to them
claiming to teach as with authority, and to bring a direct
message from God (cf. I Thess. v. 21 ; I Tim. iv. 1). The
touchstone which he there gives, the Ithuriel's spear
which should compel each false teacher to start up and
show himself in his proper shape, is the acknowledgment
or denial of the true humanity of the Son of God, that
Jesus Christ was come in the flesh (ver. 2, 3 ; 2 John 7 ;
II. 2.] EPHESUS, REV. II. I -7. 81
and Ignatius, passim). At the same time we must not
regard this as so absolutely the touchstone, that other
times and other conditions of the Church might not de-
mand other tests. Thus, in the fourth century and during
the Arian conflict, the Homoousion, * of one substance with
the Father,' was that by which the spirits were to be tried ;
a little later, during the Nestorian controversy, it was the
Osotokos. And when our Lord, warning against false
prophets, lays down this rule, ' Ye shall know them by
their fruits' (Matt. vii. 16), He adds another test by
which all such, sooner or later, may be known. By what
methods the Angel of this Church had tried these pre-
tenders to the apostolate, and discovered the falsehood of
their claims, we are not told ; but probably by a union of
both these tests. If these false prophets were, as is
generally assumed, the chiefs and leaders of the Nicolai-
tan wickedness, which is presently named by its name
(ver. 6), then doctrinally he will have tried them by the
touchstone of Christ's true humanity, whether they would
confess this or deny it ; — we may be sure that they had
that in common with all other Gnostics, which led them
to the denial of it ; — and 'practically, by the fruits which
they bore ; which, being works of shame and darkness,
avouched that the workers of them were not, and could
not be, sent of Him who is light, and in whom is no dark-
ness at all. And even were they not precisely identical
with the Nicolaitans, on which there will be something to
say at ver. 6, these tests would not the less effectually
have revealed of what spirit they were, and to what king-
dom they belonged.
We must not press ' apostles ' here, as though it
implied a claim on their parts to have seen and been
immediately sent by the Lord Jesus Christ, which was
G
82 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [il. 3.
necessary for an Apostle in the highest sense of the word
(Acts i. 21, 22 ; 1 Cor. ix. 1), nor even by the mother
Church at Jerusalem. It was now too late for either. St.
John alone of living men could claim the first prerogative,
and Jerusalem had long ago been destroyed. As little are
these 'which say they are apostles' identical in the actual
form of their resistance to the truth with those " false
apostles, deceitful workers,' who everywhere sought to
hinder the labours of St. Paul, and everywhere denied the
apostolic authority and commission which he claimed
(2 Cor. x. 11). Those and these had indeed this in common,
that they alike opposed the truth ; but those were Ju-
daizers, seeking to bring back the ceremonial law and the
obligations of it (see Acts xv. I ; Phil. iii. 2 ; 1 Tim. i. 7 ;
Gal. ii. 12 ; iii. 2; v. 2, 6, and indeed passim) ; these, on the
other hand, do not judaize, but heathenize, seeking to
throw off every yoke, to rid themselves not of the cere-
monial law only, but also of the moral ; and to break
down every distinction separating the Church from a
world lying in the Wicked one.1
Ver. 3. ' And hast borne, and hast patience, and for
my name's sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted.' —
1 This intolerance of error, this resolution to hold fast the pre-
cious deposit of the truth, to suffer nothing to he added to it, nothing
to he taken from it, nothing to he altered in it, was still the mark
and glory of the Ephesian Church at a date somewhat later than this.
It is a remarkahle testimony to this which Ignatius, writing not many
years after, hears, and it admirably agrees with the testimony which
the Lord Himself hears here to its zeal for doctrinal purity (ad Ephes.
vi.) : avros fiiv ovv 'Ovrjcripos vntpeTraivel Vfxmv rf]v iv Gew evra^iav,
on iv vp.1v ovSi/J-ia aipeais KaroiKtl' aXX' oi8e aKovere tivos TrXeov rjnep
'l7jcrov Xptcrrou XaXovvros tv dXr/dtia. And again, C. ix. : eyvav 8e nap-
oftevaavras Tivas €Kel6ev, e^ovras KaKrjv btbax^V ovs ovk elaaare (nre'ipui
ets vpas, ftvcravres ra ara, els to p.f/ TTapaSe^ao-dat to. o-neiop-fva vit
OVTODV.
ii. 3-] epiiesus, eev. ii. 1-7. 83
There is a good deal of filling up by transcribers here, and
more than one phrase to be omitted. The following ver-
sion will represent more truly the original as it stands in
the best critical editions : ' And hast patience, and didst
bear for ray name's sake, and hast not groivn weary? It
is not hard to see the inducements which led transcribers
to meddle with the text, and in the last clause of the verse
to change ical ov KSKoirlaKas into KstcoTricucas kcu ov ke-
fcfjir)fcas. They took the verb icornaw only in the sense of
* to labour ; ' but how could it be said in praise of the
Ephesian Angel that he had not laboured ; above all when
his koitos had just before (ver. 2) been the especial object
of the Lord's commendation, as indeed it is throughout the
Epistle ? so they changed the word to what we have in the
received text and in our Version ; ' thou hast laboured,
and hast not fainted.'' But kottlclw is not only to labour,
but implying, as we have seen it does, strenuous and ex-
hausting labour, will often mean farther, to grow weary
with labour (thus John iv. 6; Matt. xi. 28: KoinoivTss ical
TrscfropTio-fAsvoi) ; and it is this for which the Lord here
praises the Angel and in him the Church at Ephesus, that
he was fapeirovos (Marc. Antoninus, v. 5), that he and
the others had borne the burden and heat of a long day's
toil without fainting under it, or waxing weary of it (Gal.
vi. 9). This recurrence to the koitos of the verse pre-
ceding is very instructive, though it is hard, if not
impossible, to reproduce it in English. ' Thou knowest,'
He would say, ' what kottos is, without knowing what
Koiriav is ; ' and that this is not accidental seems evident
from the exactly similar recurrence of ftao-rd^siv in both
verses : ' There are things which thou canst not bear, and
things which thou canst bear ; thou canst not bear the
wicked, such false brethren as name the name of Christ
g 2
84 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [il. 4.
only to bring shame and disgrace upon it ; thou hast
something of the spirit of him who declared, " He that
telleth lies shall not tarry in my sight" (Ps. ci. 10; cf.
2 John 10) ; but thou canst bear my reproach, my cross ; '
cf. Luke xiv. 27, where the same word ftaard^eiv is used
as here; so also John xix. 17. Wetstein : ' Elegant er
opponuntur : ov Bvvr) /3a<rrd(7ai et s^daracras. Ferre
jjotes molestias propter Christum et vexationes ; at non
jjotes ferre pseudapostolos.'
Ver. 4. ' Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, be-
cause thou hast left thy first love.' — "E^co Kara aov : cf.
for the same phrase Matt. v. 23 ; Mark xi. 25 ; and for a
similar, Col. iii. 13. This is one of three occasions (see
ver. 14, 20) -on which Christ has to make a like exception,
and to dash and qualify his praise with blame. In
neither, however, of the other cases is the blame so severe
as here, the ' somewhat,'' which appears in part to mitigate
the severity of this judgment, having nothing correspond-
ing with it in the original. It is indeed not a ' some-
what,'' which the Lord has against the Ephesian Church ;
it threatens to grow to be an ' everything ; ' for see the
verse following, and compare I Cor. xiii. 1-3. The great
passage on 'first love' is Jer. ii. 2: 'I remember thee,
the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals,
when thou wentest after Me in the wilderness, in a land
that was not sown,' — words which set forth the first
warmth of gratitude, the first devotion of heart on the
part of Israel to its Eedeemer and Lord (Exod. xiv. 31;
xv. 1), when it seemed as if the high flood-tides of a
thankful love would never ebb, but would bear it tri-
umphantly over every obstacle, that the heart of the people
was knit for ever, by bands which could never be broken,
to Him that had brought them out of the iron furnace of
II. 4-] EPHESDS, REV. II. l-J . 85
Egypt. Such a ' first love ' of the Bride to the heavenly
Bridegroom, and in Him to all that were his, dwelt largely
in the Ephesian Church when St. Paul wrote his Epistle
to it ; he gives God thanks for their love unto all the
saints (i. 15); he introduces them without a misgiving
into the deepest mysteries of human love and divine (v.
23-33). The suggestion that this leaving of the first
love can refer to the abating of any other love but that to
Grod and Christ, grows out of an entire ignorance of the
whole spiritual life, the ways by which it travels, and the
dangers to which it is inevitably exposed, and which,
alas ! only too often prove fatal to it. See Maurice,
Lectures on the Apocalypse, pp. 62, 63.
On the question, When the Apocalypse was given, we
have a certain amount of implicit evidence here, in this
reproach with which the Lord reproaches the Ephesian
Angel ; such as has its value in confirming the ecclesias-
tical tradition which places it in the reign of Domitian, as
against the more modern view which gives the reign of
Nero as the date of the composition of this Book. It has
been well observed that in St. Paul's Epistle to the Church
of Ephesus, there are no signs, nor even presentiments, of
this approaching spiritual declension with which the great
Searcher of hearts upbraids it here. Writing to no Church
does he treat of higher spiritual mysteries. There is no
word in the Epistle of blame, no word indicating dissatis-
faction with the spiritual condition of his Ephesian con-
verts. He warns them, indeed, in his parting charge given
at Miletus, against dangers threatening them at once from
within and from without (Acts xx. 29, 30) ; but no word
indicates that they by any fault of theirs were laying them-
selves open to these. As many as place the Apocalypse in
the reign of Nero hardly allow ten years between that
86 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [il. 4.
condition and this — too brief a period for so vast and la-
mentable a change. It is inconceivable that there should
have been such a letting go of first love in so brief a time.
No : what is here described marks, as Hengstenberg has
excellently urged, the rise of another generation— a con-
dition analogous to that of the children of Israel, when
Joshua and the elders who had seen the great wonders of
Egypt and of the desert were gathered to their fathers
(Josh. xxiv. 31 ; Judg. ii. 7, 10, 11). With their disappear-
ance from the scene another order of things commences.
A second generation rises up with the traditions rather of
earnest religion than with its living power. The forms,
which were once instinct with life, still survive ; but the
life itself has, not indeed altogether, yet in good part, de-
parted from them. Place the Apocalypse under Domitian,
and thirty years will have elapsed since St. Paul wrote his
Epistle to Ephesus — exactly the interval which we require,
exactly the life of a generation. The outlines of the truth
are still preserved ; but the truth itself is not for a second
generation what it was for the first. The later has the same
watchwords as had the earlier, but they do not rouse as
they did once. The virtue which they once had has gone
from them. In appearance there is nothing changed ;
while in fact everything is changed. How often has some-
thing of this kind repeated itself in the Church.1 Thus,
1 A passage in Bishop Burnet's History of his own Times has
always seemed to me to throw light on this picture of the Ephesian
Church, active, laborious, resolute to maintain in forms of sound words
the truth once delivered, and yet with its inner principle of love so
far decayed. He is describing the state of the Protestant communi-
ties of Switzerland, Germany, and Holland, and of the French Pro-
testant refugees who had found shelter among them from the dragon-
nades, the ' mission bottee,' as it is so facetiously called by some Roman
Catholic writers, of Louis XIV. His words, written in the year 1680,
II. $.] EPHESUS, REV. II. I -7. 87
not to look nearer home, how remarkably was all this ful-
filled in the great Pietist revival in Grermany, which
Franck and Spener so gloriously commenced ; and those
who succeeded them so feebly carried forward ; offering
as they did the faintest and feeblest resistance to the
rationalism and infidelity which a little later invaded the
Church. Gerhard Grroot was wont to say of the Fratres
Communis Vita?, an Order which he founded, and which
wrought much and well in the matter of preparing the
way for the Eeformation, ' The first generation will be
holy, the second learned, the third worldly.'
Ver. 5. ' Remember therefore from whence thou art
fallen, and repent, and do the first works.' — There are ever
goads in the recollection of a better and a nobler past, goad-
ing him who has taken up with meaner things and lower,
and urging him to reclaim and recover what he has lost ;
as, to take an extreme instance, it is the prodigal's recol-
lection of the ' bread enough and to spare ' in his father's
house, which makes the swine's husks and the famine even
among them so intolerable to him (Luke xv. 17 ;,cf. Heb.
are as follows : ' I was indeed amazed at the labours and learning of
the ministers among the Reformed. They understood the Scriptures
well in the original tongues, they had all the points of controversy
very ready, and did thoroughly understand the whole body of divinity.
In many places they preached everjr day, and were almost constantly
employed in visiting their flock. But they performed their devotions
but slightly, and read their prayers, which were too long, with great
precipitation and little zeal. Their sermons were too long and too
dry. And they were so strict, even to jealousy, in the smallest points
in which they put orthodoxy, that one who could not go into all their
notions, but was resolved not to quarrel with them, could not converse
much with them with any freedom.' Speaking of the French refugees
from the dragonnades, he says : ' Even among them there did not ap-
pear a spirit of piety and devotion suitable to their condition, though
persons who have willingly suffered the loss of all things rather than
sin against their consciences, must be believed to have a deeper prin-
ciple in them than can well be observed by others.'
88 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [il. 5.
x. 32). And therefore is it that this Ephesian Angel is
bidden to remember the glorious heights of grace, the hea-
venly places, whereupon, though yet on earth, he once
walked with Christ during the fervency of his first love.
Perhaps the desire shall thus be kindled in him to scale
these heights again. In this * from whence thou art
fallen ' an allusion may possibly lie to Isai. xiv. 12, ' Hoav
art thou fallen from heaven, 0 Lucifer, son of the morn-
ing.'— * And repent, and do the first ivories.' Christ does
not say, ' Feel thy first feelings ; ' that perhaps would have
been impossible, and even if possible, might have had
but little value in it ; but ' Do the first works,'' such as
thou didst in the time of thy first devotedness and zeal.
Not so much the quantity, as the quality, of his works
was now other and worse than once it had been.
' Or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will re-
move thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.''
— The ' quickly ' is wanting in most MSS., and has pro-
bably found its way here from ver. 16 ; iii. 1 1 ; xxii. 7, 12,
20. The removing of the candlestick from a place im-
plies the entire withdrawal of Christ's grace, of his Church
with all its blessings, from that spot, with the transfer of
it to another; for it is removal of the candlestick, not
extinction of the candle, which is threatened here — judg-
ment for some, but that very judgment the occasion of
mercy for others. And so it has proved. The Churches
of Asia Minor are now no more, or barely and hardly exist ;
but the grace of God, withdrawn from them, has been
bestowed elsewhere. The seat of the Church has been
changed, but the Church itself still survives. The candle-
stick has been removed, but the candle has not been
quenched ; and what the East has lost the West has
gained. How awful for Ephesus the fulfilment of the
II. 6.] EPHESUS, REV. II. I-7. 89
threat has been every modern traveller who has visited
the ruins of that once famous city has borne witness. One
who did so not long ago found only three Christians there,
and these sunken in such ignorance and apathy as scarcely
to have heard the names of St. Paul or St. John. This
same transfer of the Church's privileges from some to
others more worthy of them is expressed elsewhere under
other images (Matt. xxi. 41 ; Eom. xi. 17); while some-
times the image expresses only the judgment, and not the
mercy as well which is behind the judgment (Isai. v. 5,7;
Luke xiii. 6- 10).
Ver. 6. ' But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds
of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.'' — Very beautiful is
the tenderness of the Lord in thus bringing forward a
second time some good thing which He had found at
Ephesus. Having been compelled to speak sharp severe
words, He yet will not leave off with these ; but having
wounded, He will, so far as it is safe to do so, also heal.1
It is no slight praise to love that which Christ loves, and
to hate that which Christ hates ; and this praise the Lord
will not withhold from the Angel of Ephesus.
But the Nicolaitans, whose deeds were the object of
the earnest hate of Christ's servants, as also of his own,
1 On tbis mingling of praise, so far as truth will allow, with the
necessary blame, and the leaving off not with blame, but with praise,
Plutarch has much to say in his delightful treatise, ' How to discern
a Flatterer from a Friend,' which is full of instruction on the true
spirit of Christian rebuke. On this, which the Lord so notably prac-
tises here, namely the not leaving off with rebuke, but if possible
with praise, he beautifully says (c. xxxvii.) : 'Ewei roiwv, wcrnep ei'p^rai,
TToWaKis f] irapprjcria rw Ofpanevopiva Xvnrjpa vndpx'i, 8et pipelcrdai
tovs larpovs- ovTe yap (Ke'ivoi repvovTa, ev rat iroveiv Ka\ akyciv Kara-
XeiTrovai to neirovdbs, dXX evef3pe£av Trpoo-rji'ats <a\ Karrjovrjo-av ' ovre 01
i>ovdfTuvvTfs,do-Tfia>s,To TTiKpbv xai Stjktikov npocrfiaXovTes aTroTpt)(ivo-iv,
dXX' opiXiais erepais kcu Xuyois inuiKto-iv (KTrpaivovcri /cat 8ta^fov<jtv.
Of. c. xxxiii.
90 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CIIUKCHES IN ASIA. [il. 6.
who were they ? It is not an easy question to answer.
Was there, in the first place, any sect existing at the time
when these words were uttered, which actually bore this
name ? I believe not. The other names of this Book,
Egypt, Babylon, Sodom, Jezebel, in agreement with its
apocalyptic character, are predominantly mystical and
symbolic ; and in all probability this is so as well ; while
the key to the right understanding of it is given us at ii.
14, 15; where those ' that hold the doctrine of Balaam '
(ver. 14) are evidently identical with those ithat hold the
doctrine of the Nicolaitans ' (ver. 15). We are here set
upon the right track. It is probable that we hardly rate
highly as we ought the significance of Balaam as an Anti-
Moses, and therefore as an Antichrist, in the Old Testa-
ment. But without entering more into this, it may be
observed that his name, according to the best etymology,
signifies ' Destroyer of the people ' (fc qui absorpsit popu-
lum,' from V?3 and Dy ) ; and Nuco\ao$ (vikclv top \aov)
is no more than a grecizing of this name (see Hengsten-
berg, Die Gesch. Bileams, pp. 20-25) — such alternation, or
duplication, presenting a word, now in its Greek, now in its
Hebrew aspect, being altogether in the character of the
Book, Greek in language, but Hebrew in form and spirit,
and several times recurring in it ; thus, 'AttoWikov and
'A/3a88(ov (ix. 11); AidftoXos and Xaravas (xii. 9 ; xx.
2) ; vat and cifnjv (i. 7). The genesis of the name, which,
so understood, will almost exactly correspond to Armillus
( = ipr]fi6\aos), the name under which the final Antichrist,
according to Jewish fables, shall seduce the followers of
Christ to their ruin (see Eisenmenger, Entd. Judenth.
vol. ii. p. 705, sqq.), may be accounted for in this way.
The Nicolaitans, as we have seen, are the Balaamites ; no
sect bearing the one name or the other ; but those who
II. 6.] EPHESUS, REV. II. l-J . 91
in the New Dispensation repeated the sin of Balaam, and
sought to overcome or lay waste the people of God by the
same temptations whereby Balaam had sought to overcome
them in the Old. But it was into the fleshly sins of
heathenism that he had sought to lead them, to introduce
such among the people of God, to draw them to eat idol
meats and to commit fornication (Num. xxv. 1-9; xxxi.
16); and this the leading character of his wickedness
must be the leading one also of theirs.
The Nicolaitans, then, or Balaamites, are those who,
after the pattern of Balaam's sin, sought to introduce a
false freedom, the freedom of the flesh, into the Church
of God. These were the foremost tempters of the Church
in the later apostolic times when the Apocalpyse was
written, and in the times immediately succeeding. The
first great battle which the Church had to fight was with
Jewish legalism. This came to its head historically, and
found its condemnation, in the Council of Jerusalem (Acts
xv. 1-3 1 ), dogmatically in St. Paul's Epistle to the Gala-
tians ; — those who refused to accept the Church's decisions
on the matter of the relations of the Christian man to the
law gradually forming themselves more and more into a
body at once schismatical and heretical, known by the
name of Ebionites ; not any longer within, but henceforth
without, the Church's pale. But this danger overcome,
St. Paul lived to see before the close of his ministry the
rise of another, and that exactly the opposite error — that,
namely, of heathen false freedom and libertinism ; while
in the later writings of the New Covenant, in the Epistle
of St. Jude, in the second of St. Peter, and in the Apoca-
lypse of St. John, we find these libertine errors already
full blown. These all speak of lawless ones (2 Pet. ii. 19),
who abused St. Paul's doctrine of grace (iii. 16), who
92 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [il. 6.
promised liberty to others, being themselves servants of
corruption (ii. 19), who turned the grace of God into las-
civiousness ( Jude 4) ; or, as these Nicolaitans, would fain
entice the servants of God to eat idol meats and commit for-
nication. It is not indeed a little remarkable, as attesting
the identity of those whose works the Lord here declares
that He hates with them whom his Apostles denounce,
that Balaam, whose name, as we have seen, is the key-
word to the title which these Nicolaitans bear, and to the
works which they do, is set forth alike by St. Peter (ii.
15) and St. Jude (ver. 11) as the seducer in whose path
of error these later seducers were themselves running and
enticing others to run.
But it may be urged against this explanation of the
matter that we find actual Nicolaitans in the second
century. Doubtless we do so. That there existed in the
second and third centuries a sect of antinomian Gnostics,
who bore this name, has been denied by some ; but on
grounds quite insufficient. Irenaeus (i. 26. 3 ; compare
Hippolytus, Con. Hcer. vii. 36) is probably in error when
he makes the founder of this sect to have been Nicolas,
the proselyte of Antioch, whom we find in such honour-
able company in the Acts (vi. 3, 5) ; and who, if this were
true, must afterwards have miserably fallen away from the
faith ; ' while yet the fault of Irenseus is probably no more
than that he too lightly admitted the claim which they
made to Nicolas as the author of their heresy. It is
certainly difficult to see what authority any statement of
1 At the same time it is certainly significant, as Ewald (Gesck.
das Volkes Israel, vol. vii. p. 173) lias observed, that he should occupy
the last place in the enumeration of the Deacons (Acts vi. 5) ; com-
pare the place invariably assigned in lists of the Apostles to Judas
Iscariot (Matt. x. 4 ; Mark iii. 19).
II. 6.] EPHESUS, REV. II. I -7. 93
Irenasus would retain with us, if we felt at liberty to set
aside his distinct assertion of such a sect as existing in
his own time. But still more explicit are the references
made to Nicolaitans by Tertullian (De Prcesc. Hcer. 46).
It cannot be urged of him, as it sometimes is of Irenseus,
that he knows nothing about them except what he has
drawn from these passages of Scripture ; for he gives an
account of their doctrines, not merely libertine, but
Gnostic, at considerable length. Clement of Alexandria
also (Strom, ii. 20) speaks without hesitation of claimants
to be followers of Nicolas (ol (pdcrKovrss eavrovs NiKoXdw
sTrscrOal) who existed as a body in his day ; and elsewhere
(ib. iii. 4) records their unbridled and excessive lusts.
He, indeed, entirely acquits Nicolas the deacon of any
share in the authorship of this heresy, giving no credit to
this boasted genealogy of theirs. The Apostolic Constitu-
tions (vi. 8) do the same. With such distinct notices of
Nicolaitans as existing in the second century, it seems a
piece of unwarrantable and excessive scepticism to deny
the historic existence of such a sect (see Neander, Kirch.
Gesch. i. 2, p. 774). At the same time, there is no need
to suppose that they were the spiritual descendants of
actual Nicolaitans, of libertines I mean, bearing this name
in the times of St. John. Rather, springing up at a later
day, one of the innumerable branches of the Grnostic heresy,
they assumed a designation which they found ready made
for them in the Apocalypse.1
It may seem indeed, at the first showing, almost in-
conceivable that a sect, professing to stand even in the
remotest relation to Christianity, should appropriate to
1 The fullest collection of all passages of antiquity bearing on the
Nicolaitans which I know, is in Stern's Commentar iiber die Offen-
baruvf/, 1854, pp. 141 -145.
94 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [il. 6.
itself a name so branded with infamy as in Holy Scripture
is this. But we must remember that with many of the
Gnostics this was a relation of absolute and entire opposi-
tion to nearly all of the Scripture ; and the history of these
daring fighters against God would supply many parallel
instances of blasphemous impiety. Thus, not to speak of
the Ophites, there were the Cainites (Tertullian identifies
them and the Nicolaitans, Be Prcesc. Hcer. 33), all whose
saints and heroes were selected from among those whom
the Scripture had stamped with deepest reprobation, the
list beginning with Cain and ending with Judas Iscariot
(ib. 47). When too we keep in mind the intense anta-
gonism of the antinomian Gnostics to St. John as a judaiz-
ing Apostle, contradistinguishing these from St. Paul, who
with their own Marcion was to sit, Paul on the right hand,
and Marcion on the left hand, of Christ in his kingdom,
being those for whom this was reserved of the Father
(Matt. xx. 23 ; Origen, in Luc. Horn. 25 ; cf. Irenseus, iii.
13); assuredly there is nothing strange that a name which
St. John, or the Saviour by his lips, branded with worst
dishonour, they, glorying in their shame, should assume
as one of chiefest honour ; — just as in an infidel publica-
tion of the present day which has sometimes come under
my eye, there are letters signed in blasphemous earnest
with the signature of ' Antichrist.'
One point still remains. Is the hating of the deeds of
the Nicolaitans of this verse identical with the not being
able to ' bear them which are evil ' of ver. 2 ? or, being a
grace growing out of the same holy impatience of evil, is
there for all this a certain difference between them, so
that while that was rather a hatred of error in doctrine,
of departure from the faith once delivered, an unmasking
of them that said they were apostles and were not, this is
II. 7-] EPHESUS, REV. II. \-J . 95
more a hatred of evil done, of the deeds of the Xicolaitans ?
In other words, is the Lord here recurring to that good
thing which He has already found and praised in Ephesus ?
or is this new praise, and the recognition of a further
grace ? Most expositors take for granted that Christ here
reverts to and repeats his commendation already uttered,
that the Nicolaitans therefore of this are identical with
' them that are eviV of the former verse. I cannot think
it ; hut must see here not the repetition of praise bestowed
before, which would be somewhat flat, but a further merit
which Christ is well pleased to find and to acknowledge in
his Church at Ephesus. The * deeds of the Nicolaitans '
were, no doubt, the crowning wickedness there, the bitter
fruit growing out of that evil root of false doctrine ; but
whether in root, as He testified before, or in fruit, as He
testifies now, this evil was equally hated by the Angel and
Church of Ephesus.
Ver. 7. ' He that hath an ear, let him hear what the
Spirit saith unto the Churches.'' — These words recur in all
the Epistles ; with only this difference, that in the earlier
three they occur before, in the later four after, the final
promise. Is there any meaning in this change of place ?
It is difficult to believe that there is none. The Apoca-
lypse is a work of such consummate art, a device of such
profound wisdom, so penetrated through and through with
what we might call a divine cabala, and fashioned accord-
ing to its laws, that one is slow to assume anything acci-
dental in it, or that any departure in it from a rule which
has been once admitted is without a purpose. Still I must
own that I have never seen any satisfactory explanation of
this transposition. That in every case the words usher
in, or commend, truths of the deepest concernment to all,
there can be no doubt. This we might confidently argue
96 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHUKCHES IN ASIA. [il. /.
from the very form of the exhortation ; but we further
gather it from a comparison of the passages, all of them of
deepest significance, where the same summons to attention
recurs (Matt. xi. 15 ; xiii. 9, 43; Mark vii. 16; Eev. xiii.
9) ; so that Irving {Expos, of the Revelation, vol. i. p.
354) has perfect right when he affirms, ' This form always
is used of radical, and as it were generative, truths, great
principles, most precious promises, most deep fetches from
the secrets of God, being as it were eyes of truth, seeds
and kernels of knowledge.' It is always a matter of
weightiest concernment to the whole Church of (rod,
which these words usher in or seal.
But let us look a little closer at them, and see what
other lessons this summons, in the form which it here
takes, is capable of yielding. And first the ' ear' here is
not a natural ear, neither is this a summons to every
man, for every man has such a natural ear, to attend to
the words now spoken ; but rather the words are an equi-
valent to the 6 hwapevos ^oopslv -^aypsiTco of Matt. xix. 12,
and imply that spiritual truth needing a spiritual organ
for its reception, only he will be able to hear to whom
(rod has given the hearing ear (Deut. xxix. 4), whose ear
He has wakened (Isai. 1. 4, 5) ; of others it is true, ' their
ear is uncircumcised, and they cannot hearken ' ( Jer. vi.
10). And yet for all this the words are in another sense
addressed to every one, inasmuch as he who has not this
hearing ear, who discovers from the failure of these words
of Christ to reach the depths of his spirit, that he has it
not, is implicitly bidden to seek it of Him who can alone
give it to any, and who would be well pleased to give it to
all. But secondly we are taught by these words how ab-
solute is the identity between the workings of the Son and
of the Holy Ghost ; how truly the Spirit is the Spirit of
II. 7-] EPHESUS, REV. II. I -7. 97
speaking throughout ; but now without a word of explana-
tion, what He speaks is declared to be what the Spirit speaks.
It is the Spirit who declares these things to the Churches.
And in that phrase, 'the Churches,'' we are further reminded
of the universal character which this Epistle and those that
follow it possess. It might seem that all which had hitherto
been uttered had been uttered only to one Church, to that
of Ephesus ; nor would I in the least deny this primary de-
stination, nor that all the reproofs, encouragements, warn-
ings, promises which it contains were designed for Ephesus.
But they are not limited to it. He who utters these words
will allow of no such limitation. In a form somewhat
more solemn he virtually repeats what He once spoke in
the days of his flesh, * What I say unto you, I say unto all ; '
for, standing as He does at the central heart of things, in
his particular there ever lies involved an universal ; and
therefore is it that heaven and earth may pass away, but
his words can never pass away. This universal character
of these addresses, that, addressed to one they were at the
same time spoken to all, was recognised long ago. Thus
in the famous Muratori fragment we find it : ' Johannes in
Apocalypsi licet septem Ecclesiis scribat, tamen omnibus
dicit.'
' To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree
of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God.'' — It
is deeply interesting and instructive to observe how in this,
and probably in every other case, the character of the pro-
mise corresponds to the character of the faithfulness dis-
played. They who have abstained from the idol-meats,
from the sinful dainties of the flesh and world, shall, in
return, ' eat of the tree of life ; ' or, as it is in the Epistle
to Pergamum, ' of the hidden manna ' (ii. 17) ; the same
law of correspondency and compensation reigning in most,
H
98 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [il. 'J.
if not all the other promises as well. They who have not
feared those who can kill the body only, who have given,
where need was, their bodies to the flame, shall not be
hurt by the second death (ii. 1 1 ). They whom the world
has not vanquished, shall have dominion over the world
(ii. 26, 27). They who keep their garments here unde-
filed, shall be clad in the white and shining garments of
immortality there (iii. 4, 5). They who overcome Jewish
pretensions (and the earnest warnings of the Epistle to
the Hebrews show us that this for some was not done
without the hardest struggle), shall be made free, not of
an earthly, but of an heavenly, Jerusalem (iii. 12). The only
Church in which any difficulty occurs in tracing the cor-
relation between the form of the victory and the form of
the reward, is the last.
But this much said by way of general introduction to
all the promises, the promise here may well claim closer
attention. The image of the Christian as a conqueror, one
' that overcomeihf is frequent with St. Paul (2 Tim. ii. 5 ;
1 Cor. ix. 24, 25) ; even as on the other hand he contem-
plates sin as an 77TT17 fia, a being worsted or overcome ( I Cor.
vi. 7) ; but such phrases as vitcav tov koct/xov, vlkclv rbv
irovrjpov, or simply vlkclv as here, nowhere occur in his
Epistles — the only passage in them which in the least
resembles these, or where the word is employed to express
the moral victory over sin and temptation, is Rom. xii. 21.
This use of vikclv, with that single and partial exception,
is exclusively St. John's ; and the frequent recurrence of
it on the one side in his Gospel and Epistles, and on the
other in the Apocalypse (thus compare John xvi. 33 ; I Ep.
ii. 13, 14; v. 4, 5, with Rev. ii. 11, 17, 26; iii. 5, 12,21;
xii. 1 1 ; xxi. 7), constitutes an interesting point of contact
between the language of this Book and of those others
II. 7-] EPHESUS, REV. II. I-7. 99
whereof lie is the author as well ; and, for those who need
such evidence, an evidence for the identity of the author
of those and of this. It occurs in the ethical terminology
of heathen philosophy at its best. Thus Plato (Lege/, i.
626 E) : to viKav avrov iraaoiv vucwv Trpcorrj te KaldplcrTi].
It is very noteworthy, — and this ' I will give,'' recurring
as it does so constantly in all these Epistles, bids us
to note, — how absolutely without reserve or qualification
Christ assumes for Himself throughout them all the dis-
tribution of rewards, as supreme and sole /xiadairoSorrjs
(Heb. xi. 6) in the kingdom of glory (ii. 10, 17, 26, 28 ;
ii. 21 : cf. xxi. 6 ; 2 Tim. iv. 8; Matt. xx. 8). Elsewhere
St. Paul has said, ' The gift of God is eternal life ' (Rom.
vi. 23) ; here it appears eminently as the gift of Christ.
And his ' I will give,'' though still in the future, is sure.
It has nothing in it of the hooaw of that ever promising but
never performing king of Macedon ; who, having ever this
same Scoaco on his lips, but never the Bcopov in his hands,
acquired the name of Doson, fastened as no honourable
distinction upon him who, being rich in promises, yet
never crowned the promise with the performance.
The use of %v\ov, the dead timber in classical Greek,
for BsvBpov, the living tree, is Hellenistic ; not indeed ex-
clusively confined to the Septuagint and the N.T., being
found in the Alexandrian poets, Callimachus for instance,
as well ; indeed, there is an anticipation of it in Hero-
dotus, iii. 47. In ' the tree of life ' there is manifest
allusion to Gen. ii. 9. The tree which disappeared with
the disappearance of the earthly Paradise, reappears with
the reappearance of the heavenly, Christ's kingdom being
in the highest sense ' the restitution of all things ' (Acts
iii. 2 1 ). Whatever had been lost through Adam's sin is
won back, and that too in a higher shape, through Christ's
H 2
100 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [ll. 7.
obedience. That the memory of ' the tree of life ' had not
in the mean time perished, we gather from such refer-
ences to it as Prov. iii. 18 ; xi. 30 ; xiii. 12 ; xv. 4.1 ' To
eat of the tree of life ' is a figurative phrase to express
participation in the life eternal ; cf. Gen. iii. 22 ; Ezek.
xlvii. 12 ;2 Eev. xxii. 2, 14; 2 Esdr. ii. 12; vii. 53;
and Ecclus. xix. 19:' They that do things that please
Him shall receive the fruit of the tree of immortality '
(ddavacrlas SsvSpov Kapirovvrai). Compare the words of
the Christian Sibyl :
Oi 8e 0eoi> Tifx£)VTes aki]6ivbv aevaovTt
■Zoorjv K\qpovop.ov&i rbv atcovns xpvvov, avroi
OIkovvtcs Ilapa8eiaov Sfxc'os epiBrjXea k'iTtov,
Aaivvpevoi ykvicvv iiprov cm ovpavov dorepdeiToy.
We meet with echoes and reminiscences of this itree of
life ' in the mythologies of many nations ; or, if not actual
reminiscences of it, yet Teachings out after it, as in the
Yggdrasilof our own northern mythology (Grimm, Deutsche
Mythol. p. 756) ; and still more remarkable in the Persian
Horn. This Horn is the king of trees, is called in the
Zend-Avesta the Death-destroyer ; it grows by the fountain
of Arduisur, in other words, by the waters of life ; while
its sap drunken imparts immortality (Creuzer, Symbolik,
vol. i. p. 187, and often).
For the words, ' which is in the midst of the Paradise
■of God,' we should read, ' tvhich is in the Paradise of
1 The Rabbis, of course, know a great deal about this ' tree of life.'1
Its boughs overshadow the whole of Paradise. It has five hundred
thousand fragrant smells, and its fruit as many pleasant tastes, not
one of them resembling any other (Eisenmenger, Entdecktes Judenthum,
vol. ii. p. 311 ; which book also see, pp. 260-320, for much on the
Upper and the Under Paradise, as the Jews were wont to call them).
2 Lucian's words (Ver. Hist. ii. 14), in his account of the Island
of the Blest, sound very much like a scoff at this : al p.ev afxnikoi So-
8eKa(j)opoi eicri, Kai Kara p.?]va kKU<TTov Kap7ro<popoi(ri.
II. 7-] EPHESU?, EEY. II. I-/. 101
'God ' — transcribers having brought their ' in the midst '
from Gren. ii. 9. UapdSsLcros is a word whose history is
well worth tracing. The word and the thing which it
designated are both generally said to be Persian ; though
this is now earnestly denied by some, who claim for it a
Semitic origin (see Tuch, Genesis, p. 68 ; Delitzsch,
Genesis, p. 137, 2nd edit.). It was first naturalized in
Greek by Xenophon, who designated by it the parks or
pleasure-gardens of Persia, in which wild beasts were kept
or stately trees grown {Hell. iv. 1. 15 ; (Econ. iv. 13 ;
Cyrop. i. 4. 11), being at once the ' vivarium ' and t lie
'viridarium' (Augustine, Serm. 343; ' leporarium ' Varro
calls it) of the Romans ; for classical Latin, it may be
observed by the way, did not know the word ' paradisus '
(see A. Gfellius, ii. 20. 4, and the long circumlocution by
which Cicero, De Senect. 17, is compelled to express the
thing). Where the Septuagint Translators employ irapd-
Bsiaos, it is commonly to designate the garden of Eden
(Gren. ii. 8; iii. I ; Ezek. xxviii. 13), though sometimes
it stands there for any stately garden of delight whatever
(Isai. i. 30 ; Jer. xxix. 5 ; Eccl. ii. 5 : siroi^ad [xot k^ttovs
kcli irapahslaovs). Philo refers to it often as such, de-
scribing it in language which has an Homeric touch about
it : ywpov ovrs o/M^pots ovts vicpsrots, ovrs Kv/iacrt ftapv-
v6[isvov, dW bv e£ Qicsavov irpavs dsl ^scpvpos sirLTrvslcov
dva-^fvyzi. The word, by the time that it appears in the
N.T., has taken a great spring. The ideal beauty of that
dwelling-place of our first parents, perhaps also the fact
that it had now vanished from the earth, has caused the
name ' Paradise ' to be transferred to that region and pro-
vince in Hades, or the invisible world, where the souls of
the faithful are gathered, waiting for their perfect consum-
mation and bliss. 'Their [the Jews'] meaning therefore was
102 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [il. 7.
this : that as paradise, or the garden of Eden, was a place
of great beauty, pleasure, and tranquillity, so the state of
separate souls was a state of peace and excellent delights '
(so Jeremy Taylor in his beautiful Sermon at the Funeral
of Sir George Dalstone). It is in this sense, as a place of
rest after the storms of life, that Christ allowed and em-
ployed the term, when to the penitent malefactor He
said, ' This day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise '
(Luke xxii. 43).1 But even this is not all. The word
takes a higher meaning yet ; for this inferior Paradise
is not to be confounded with the superior or heavenly,
' the Paradise of God,'' as it is here called (the phrase has
already occurred in the Septuagint, Ezek. xxxi. 7, 8), ' the
third heaven,' where is the immediate presence and glory
of God (2 Cor. xii. 2, 4). We may thus trace irapahsiaos
passing through an ascending scale of meanings. From
any garden of delight, which is its first meaning, it comes
to be predominantly applied to the garden of Eden ;
then to the resting-place of separate souls in joy and
felicity ; and lastly, to the very heaven itself ; and we
see eminently in it, what we see indeed in so many words,
how revealed religion assumes them into its service, and
makes them vehicles of far higher truth than any which
they knew at first, transforming and trans figuring them,
as in this case, from glory to glory.
This ' tree of life,'' with the privilege to the faithful of
eating of its fruits, appears again at the close of this
Book (xxii. 2, 14). It is very interesting to note, and
no fitter opportunity than this for noting, the fine and
subtle bands which knit one part of the Apocalypse to
1 The two chief passages in the Fathers on Paradise contemplated
as this middle state, are Tertullian, De Animd,$$ (his hook De Para~
diso has not reached us) ; and Origen, De Princ. ii. II. 6.
II. 7-] EPHESUS, REV. II. l-J. 103
another, the marvellous art, if we may dare to use an
earthly word speaking of a heavenly fact, with which
this Book is constructed. Especially these seven Epistles,
which at first sight might seem, which to some have
seemed, to be but slightly attached to the other parts of
the Book, do yet on nearer examination prove to be bound
to them by the closest possible bands. There is not one
of the promises made to the faithful in these second and
third chapters, which does not look on to, and perhaps
first find its full explanation in, some later portion of the
Book. Thus the eating of the tree of life, as unfolded
farther at xxii. 2, 14, 19; deliverance from the second
death (ii. 11) receives its solemn commentary, xx. 14;
xxi. 8 ; the writing of the new name of ii. 17 reappears
xiv. 1 ; the dominion over the heathen of ii. 26 at xx. 4 ;
the morning star of ii. 28 at xxii. 16; the white gar-
ments of iii. 5 at iv. 4 ; vii. 9, 13; the name found
written in the book of life of iii. 5 at xiii. 8 ; xx. 1 5 ; the
New Jerusalem and the citizenship in it of iii. 12 at xxi.
10 ; xxii. 14 ; the sitting upon the throne of iii. 21 at iv. 4.1
1 Very beautifully Bengel on this matter, though his words refer
not to the seven Epistles only, but to the whole Book : ' Partes
hujus libri passim inter se respiciunt. Omnino structura libri hujus
prorsus artem divinam spirat ; estque ejus quodam modo proprium,
ut res futuras multas, et in multitudine varias, proximas, interme-
dias, remotissimas, maximas, minimas, terribiles, salutares, ex veteri-
bus prophetis repetitas, novas, longas, breves, easque inter se con-
textas, oppositas, compositas, seque mutuo involventes et evolventes,
ad se invicem ex intervallo parvo aut magno respicientes, adeoque
interdum quasi disparentes, abruptas, suspensas, et postea de impro-
viso opportunissime sub conspectum redeuntes, absoluto compendio
complectatur ; atque his rebus, quse complectitur liber, structura
libri exacte respondet. Itaque in omnibus suis partibus admira-
bilem habet varietatem, spirasque pulcerrimas, simulque summam
harnioniam, per ipsas anomalias, quae illam interpellare videntur, valde
illustratam.'
II.
EPISTLE TO THE CHUECH OF SMYRNA.
Rev. ii. 8— 1 1.
Ver. 8. ' And unto the Angel of the Church in Smyrna
write.9 — The next in order to Ephesus of the seven
Churches is Smyrna ; the next not only in the spiritual
order here, but in the natural as well, lying as it does a
little to the north of that city. Smyrna, * the ornament
of Asia' (dyaX/xa rrjs 'Acrias, as it has been called), was
one of the fairest and noblest cities of Ionia (77 fcaWio-Tw
tcov 'IcovLfcoov 7t6\s(ov, Lucian, Imagg. 2), most favour-
ably placed upon the coast to command the trade of the
Levant, which equally in old and modern times it has
enjoyed. In ecclesiastical history it is chiefly famous as
the Church over which Polycarp presided as bishop for so
many years. This Church must have been founded at a
very early date, though there is no mention of it either
in the Acts or in the Epistles of St. Paul.
Tertullian indeed distinctly tells us that Polycarp was
consecrated bishop of Smyrna by St. John (7)e Prcesc.
Hceret. 32); and Irenseus, who affirms that he had him-
self in his youth often talked with him, declares the same
(Eusebius, H. E. iv. 14: cf. iii. 36; Jerome, Catal.
Script, s. v. Polycarpus ; Jacobson, Patt. Apostoll. p. 564 ;
II. 9-] SMYRNA, EEV. II. 8-1 I. 105
Rothe, Die Anfdnge d. Christl. Kirche, p. 429). His
martyrdom belongs to the principate of Antoninus Pius,
and to the year a.d. 154, or 1 5 5.1
' These things saith the first and the last, which tvas
dead, and is alive.'' — Being addressed, as this Epistle is,
to a Church exposed, and hereafter to be still more exposed,
to the fiercest blasts of persecution, it is graciously ordered
that all the attributes which Christ here claims for Himself
should be such as would encourage and support his ser-
vants in their trials and distress. Bright man : ' Titulos
sibi sumit [Christus] qui praesenti rerum conditioni con-
veniunt. Unde varium suae gloria? radium in singulis
Epistolis spargit, pro varia fortuna qua sunt Ecclesice.'
For these titles of Christ, ' the first and the last,'' and
' which was dead, and is alive,' or rather, ' who became,
dead, and lived again,' see i. 17, 18. "E&aev here is not
' vixit,' but 'revixit' (cf. Ezek. xxxvii. 3; John v. 25 ;
Rev. xiii. 14) ; death having been for Him only the passage
to a more glorious life. How then should his servants fear
them who could kill the body, and then had nothing more
which they could do ? what misgivings should they have
in committing their souls to One, who had so triumphantly
redeemed and rescued his own ?
Ver. 9. ' I knoiv thy works, and tribulation, and po-
verty ; but thou art rich.' — For the first cliuse see what
has been said already on ver. 2 ; the words of themselves
1 An important communication recently made by M. Waddington
to the French Academie des Inscriptions has put it beyond all doubt
that the date of Polycarp's death usually given, — some time, that is,
falling within the years a.d. 166-169, — is too late by more than ten
years. The best scholars alike in England and abroad have assented
to the conclusions at which on this matter he has arrived. Thus
Bishop Lightfoot, see the Contemporary Review, May, 1875, P- 838 ;
and Renan, L'Antechrist, p. 566.
106 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [il. 9.
express neither praise nor blame. The ' tribulation ' re-
fers out of all doubt to the affliction which the Church of
Smyrna endured at the hands of its Jewish and heathen
persecutors and oppressors, 6\l/3slv and 6\li]rt,s being con-
stant words to express this ( 1 Thess. iii. 4 ; Heb. xi. 37 ;
Acts xx. 23 ; Rev. i. 9, and often). So too their ' poverty '
will probably have come upon them through the spoiling
of their goods (Heb. x. 34), and the various wrongs in
their worldly estate which the profession of the faith of
Christ will have brought with it — ' But thou art rich.'
How much better this, poor in the esteem of the world,
but rich before Christ, than the condition of the Laodicean
Angel, rich in his own esteem, but most poor in the sight
of Christ (iii. 17). There can, of course, be no doubt that
' rich'' here means rich in grace (cf. Rom. viii. 32 ; Col.
ii. 3 ; 1 Tim.vi. 1 8), having treasure in heaven (Matt. vi. 20;
xix. 21 ; Luke xii. 21), as the same word irXovacos ex-
presses in a similar, but yet a far higher sense, rich in glory
elsewhere (2 Cor. viii. 9). These words, to which Jam.
ii. 5-7 furnishes a remarkable parallel, constitute a very
beautiful parenthesis, declaring as they do the judgment
of heaven concerning this Church of Smyrna, as contra-
distinguished from the judgment of earth. Men saw no-
thing there save the poverty, but He who sees not as man
seeth, saw the true riches which this seeming poverty con-
cealed, even as He too often sees the real poverty which
may he behind the show of riches ; for there are both
poor rich-men and rich poor-men in his sight. Very
beautifully, though of course moving in altogether a
different and lower sphere of thought, the Greek comic
poet writes (Meineke, Fragm. Com. p. 765):
■fyvxijv €\eiv del Trkovaiav tcl he xprjfjLara
ravr icrriv o^ty, napaTreTacrfia rov j3iov.
II. 9«] SMYRNA, KEY. II. 8-1 1. 107
* And 1 know the blasphemy of them which say they are.
Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan.' —
The most important question which presents itself here is
this — in what sense shall we take the term ' Jews " ? By
' those which say they are Jews, and are not,' shall we
understand Jews literally so called, who, being the natural
seed of Abraham, claimed also to be the spiritual ; or,
accepting ' Jews ' here as the designation of the true cir-
cumcision not made with hands, that is, of Christians,
shall we see in these some who claimed to be Christians,
but whose right to belong to his Church Christ here
denies ? The former appears to me the preferable inter-
pretation. The analogy of such passages as Eom. ii. 28,
29 ; ix. 6 ; Phil. iii. 2, 3, points this way.1 Then, again,
these opposers and blasphemers were evidently persecu-
tors to bonds and death of the faithful at Smyrna ; but,
extreme shame and disgrace as some of the heretical sects
were bringing on the true Church at this time, there is
no tittle of evidence that they had the power or the desire
to persecute it with the weapons of outward persecution.
It was otherwise, however, with the Jews literally so
named. What their 'blasphemy'' against Jesus of Naza-
reth, against the Lord of glory, but known to them as
' the hanged one,' was, and still is, we are only too well
aware (see Eisenmenger, Entdecktes Judenthum, vol. i.
pp. 61-188). While too the opposition of the heathen
was still languid and fitful, the jealousy of the Eoman
state being hardly awakened, the fierceness of their
enmity, the eagerness with which they sought to stimulate
the enmity of the heathen, almost every page in the Acts
1 There is a long discussion in one of Augustine's letters (Ep.
cxcvi. § 6-16), how far Christians, as the true circumcision, might
rightfully be called Jews.
108 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [il. 9.
declares (xiii. 50; xiv. 2, 5, 19 ; xvii. 5 ; xxiv. 2 ; I Thess.
ii. 14) ; and many a page of early ecclesiastical history no
less. Moreover, this blasphemy and malignant antagonism
of the Jews against the truth displayed itself in bitterest
enmity against this very Church of Smyrna. We learn
from that precious document, the Epistle of the Church of
Smyrna recording the martyrdom of Polycarp, that Jews
joined with heathens in crying out in the amphitheatre
that the Christian bishop should be cast to the lions ; and
when there was a difficulty about this, that he should be
burned alive ; which being granted, the Jews, as was their
wont (coy Wos avrols), were foremost and forwardest in
bringing logs for the funeral pile ; they, too, doing all
that lay in their power to hinder the remains of the
martyr from being delivered to his followers for burial
(cap. 12, 13, 17).
In the words which follow, ' but are the synagogue of
Satan? I find another proof that Jews, literally so called,
are intended. To them belonged the synagogue, to Chris-
tians the Church. Through all the N. T. avvaycoyyj is
only once used for a Christian place of assembly (Jam. ii.
2), never for the body of the faithful in Christ Jesus.
With this one exception, capable of an easy explanation
(see my Synonyms of the N. T., § i), the word is aban-
doned to the Jews. And that congregation of theirs,
which might have been the Church of the living God, is
now ' the synagogue of Satan ' — a hard saying, a terrible
designation on the lips of Him who uses not such words at
random, but a title which they, once the chosen people of
the Lord, had wrought with all their might to deserve.
Nothing else indeed was possible for them, if they would
not be his people indeed ; they could not be as the heathen,
merely wcm-Christian, they must be tw£i-Christian. The
II. I O.J SMYRNA, REY. II. 8 II. 109
measure of then* former nearness to God was the measure
of their present distance from Him. In the height to
which they were lifted up was involved the depth to
which, if they did not continue at that height, they must
inevitably fall ; and this, true for them, is true also for
all, for as many as, inheriting their privileges, are there-
fore exposed to their dangers. — As nothing is accidental
in this Book, so it is worth remarking that as we have
here ' the synagogue of Satan,'' so presently * the throne
of Satan' (ii. 13), and then lastly, ' the depths of Satan '
(ii. 24) ; * the synagogue of Satan ' representing the
Jewish antagonism to the Church, ' the throne of Satan '
the heathen, and ' the depths of Satan ' the heretical.
Ver. 10. ' Fear none of those things which thou shalt
suffer.'' — The great Captain of our salvation never keeps
back or conceals what those who faithfully witness for Him
may have to bear for his name's sake ; never entices re-
cruits into his service, or seeks to retain them under his
banner, by the promise that they shall find all things easy
and pleasant there. So far from this, He says of St. Paul
at the outset of his apostolic career, ' I will show him how
great things he must suffer for my name's sake ' (Acts
ix. 16 ; cf. Matt. x. 16-31 ; Luke ix. 23 ; John xvi. 2, 33 ;
Ezek. ii. 3-7 ; Jer. i. 19) ; and in like manner He announces
to the Angel of Smyrna that bonds, and tribulation, and
death itself, are before him and before others, as many as
at Smyrna shall continue faithful to the end. But for all
this they are not to fear. Presently He will declare to
them why they should not fear ; but first He further un-
rolls in their sight the scroll of their sufferings.
' Behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison,
that ye may be tried.'' — rO 8id/3o\os ( = Kar^ycop, Rev.
xii. 10 ; ' criminator ' as an old Latin version ; ' accusator '
110 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [ll. 10.
in the Vulgate), a name given to Satan by the Alexandrian
translators with reference to the work of accuser ascribed
to him, accusing men to God (Job. i. 9 ; ii. 5 ; Zech. iii.
1, 2; Wisd. ii. 24), and also, which is less often urged,
accusing God to men (Gen. iii. 1, 5) : ' Sed et diaboli
nomen meretur, cos rbv ®eov irpos roiis avOpooirovs ctvko-
(pavrojv, ut loquitur Suidas ' (Rhenferd). How well at his
instigation the Jews played the secondary role of 8idf3o\oi,
first against the Lord Himself, and then against his ser-
vants, appears in the Gospels (Luke xxiii. 2 ; John xix.
12), in the Acts (xvii. 5-8 ; xxiv. 2), and in all the early
Church history. From a multitude of passages in Justin
Martyr's Dialogue with TrypJto, as from Origen's answer
to Celsus (iii. 1 ; vi. 27), it is clear that they were the
main authors of the calumnies against the Christians
with which the malice of the heathen world was stimu-
lated and fed, and by which that world sought to justify
itself in the cruelties practised against them.
The manner in which this persecution of the saints
is here traced to the direct agency of Satan, is very well
worthy of observation. We sometimes assume that Chris-
tians were persecuted, because the truth for which they
bore witness traversed the interests, affronted the pride,
would have checked the passions of men ; and this is most
true ; but we have not so reached to the ground of the
matter. There is nothing more remarkable in the records
which have come down to us of the early persecutions,
and in this point they singularly illustrate the Scripture
before us, than the sense which the confessors and martyrs,
and those who afterwards narrate their sufferings and
their triumphs, entertain and utter, that these great
fights of affliction through which they were called to pass,
were the immediate work of the devil, and no mere result
H. 10.] SMYRNA, REV. II. 8-1 1. Ill
of the offended passions, prejudices, or interests of men.
The enemies of flesh and blood, as mere tools and instru-
ments, are nearly lost sight of by them in a constant
reference to Satan as the invisible but most real author
of all. And assuredly they had right. So much we
might boldly say, even if we had not the warrant of such
Scriptures as this. Thus, who that reads that story of the
persecution of the saints at Lyons and Vienne, a.d. 177,
happily preserved for us by Eusebius (H. E. v. i) in the
very words of the survivors (see Kenan, Marc-AurUe,
p. 302 sqq.), that wondrous tale of persistent inventive
cruelty on the part of the heathen, overmatched by a
superhuman patience on the part of the faithful, but must
feel that there is infinitely more here than a conflict of
bad men with good ? There is rather on the one side an
outbreak from the bottomless pit, the might and malice
of the devil, making war against God in the person of his
saints ; on the other a victory, not over evil men alone,
but over Satan, so transcendant that it could only have
been surpassed when Christ Himself beheld him fall as
lightning from heaven (Luke x. 18). This reference to
the devil as the primary author of all assaults upon the
Church, the sense of which speaks out so strikingly in
these Acts of the Gallic martyrs, speaks out hardly less
strongly in others ; thus see the Ep. de S. Poly carpi
Mart. iii. 17, 19 ; Mart. Ignat. 7.
From the fact that our Translators have rendered iva
TrsipaaOrjTs, ' that ye may be tried,'' we may certainly con-
clude that they contemplated these rn-sipao-fioi rather as the
gracious trials of God (cf. Jam. i. 2, 3 ; 1 Pet. i. 7) than the
temptations of the devil (Job i. 5 ; ii. 6; Luke xxii. 31).
Yet assuredly this is not so ; and Tyndale and Cranmer,
who translate, * to tempt you,' are to be preferred ; so
112 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CTIURCHES IN ASIA. [il. 10.
Marckius : ' Ut tentemini ; non simplici probatione con-
stantise, quo pacto Deus tentat suos, sed incitatione ad
malum et infidelitatem, quo pacto Deus neminem tentat.'
Temptation from the devil, not trial or proof from a
Heavenly Father's hand, is that which, according to this
warning word of the Lord, was in store for tbem. It is
indeed perfectly true that the same event is oftentimes
both the one and the other — God sifting and winnowing the
man to separate his chaff from his wheat, the devil sifting
and winnowing him in the hope that nothing else but chaff
will be found in him (Luke xxii. 31). It is quite true also
that 7T£cpd^£iv is used in both senses ; sometimes in a sense
closely bordering upon that of Soki/jlcI^siv, and then ascribed
to (rod, who, as the supreme ZoKifxacnrjs rcov /cap&iwv,
tempts and proves his servants to show them what of sin,
of infirmity, of unbelief is yet in their hearts ; and showing
them this, to leave them holier than before this temptation
He found them (Heb. xi. 17 ; cf. Gen. xxii. 1 ; Exod. xv. 25 ;
Deut. xiii. 3). At the same time irstpd^siv is much oftener
used of temptation by the devil, solicitation on his part
to evil (Matt. iv. 1 ; 1 Cor. x. 1 3 ; Gal. vi. 1 ; 1 Thess.
iii. 5 ; Heb. ii. 18 ; Jam. i. 13) ; and the words going im-
mediately before, ' Behold the devil will cast some of you
into prison,'' are decisive that the Lord is here warning
his servants, as He did in the days of his personal ministry
upon earth, against fierce assaults of their ghostly enemy
which were close at hand, that so by watchfulness and
prayer they might be able to stand in the evil day that
was so near.
The temptations of imprisonment He especially adduces
here. In the records of the Church's early conflicts with
the heathen, we constantly find the prison doing its part ;
those who endured torture bravely being returned to prison,
II. 10.] SMYRNA, REV. II. 8-1 1. 113
that so it might be seen whether hunger and thirst, dark-
ness and chains, would not be effectual in breaking down
by little and little the courage and the steadfastness which
had resisted manfully the first and more violent onset of
the foe. Sometimes it would prove so. The Church's
early story, furnishing in the main a glorious commentary
on these words, furnishes a mournful commentary as well
When temptations such as the Lord here speaks of arrived,
it would be ever seen that there were many weak brethren ,
and some false ; and the Church, rejoicing over the
steadfastness of multitudes among her children, had yet to
mourn over the faltering infirmity of some, and the shame-
less apostasy of others (Eusebius, H. E. v. I. 10; Cyprian,
Be Laps, i, 2).
* And ye shall have tribulation ten days.' For s^sts
(*ye shall have') Lachmann and others have received
into the text syrjrs (' ye may have '), which word equally
with Trsipao-QrjTS will then depend on Xva. These Hen
days,'' during which the tribulation of Smyrna shall endure,
have been very variously interpreted, some understanding
by them a very long period (cf. Gren. xxxi. 41 ; Job xix. 3 ;
Num. xiv. 22); and some a very short (Gren. xxiv. 55 ;
Num. xi. 19). Those who interpret in the former sense
have very commonly seen here allusion to the ten perse-
cutions which the Church is often said to have passed
through, during the three hundred years of its conflict
with heathen Eome. It has been objected that this enu-
meration of exactly ten persecutions is altogether arbi-
trary ; that, if we include in our list only those which had
some right to be called general, as extending over the
whole Eoman empire, the persecutions would not be so
many ; if all those which reached any single city or pro-
vince, they would be many more. But, setting this
1
114 EPISTLES TO THE SEYEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [il. 10.
objection aside, I am persuaded we must look for some-
thing very different here from an announcement of the
great length of time over which the persecution would
extend ; the ' ten days ' declaring not the length, but the
shortness of time within which all this tyranny would be
overpast. I conclude this from the fact that only so will
the words fall in with the whole temper and spirit of this
verse, which is encouraging and consolatory throughout.
Here, as so often elsewhere, the briefness of the trial is
urged as a motive for its patient endurance (cf. Isai. xxvi.
20 ; liv. 8; Ps. xxx. 5 ; Matt. xxiv. 22 ; 2 Cor. iv. 17 ;
1 Pet. i. 6; v. 10).
* Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a
crown of life.'' — More than one of the early Fathers have
written an Exhortatio ad Martyrium, but what are they
all, as compared with this ? ' Unto death ' here is an in-
tensive, not an extensive, term. Christ does not mean,
' to thy life's end,' contemplating life under aspects of
time ; but ' to the sharpest and worst which the enemy can
inflict upon thee, even to death itself.' Dare and endure,
the words would say, the worst which evil men can threa-
ten and inflict, even death itself (Matt. x. 22 ; xxiv. 13 ;
Ecclus. iv. 28). Marckius : ' Quam exigit [fidelitatem]
usque ad mortem, non tarn terminum temporis notans,
quanquam et ad metse nostrse finem sit perseverandum,
quam quidem gradum mali, in quo fidelitas nostra demon-
stranda est, ut mortem ipsam in causa fidei et pietatis
subire non detractemus.'
With the words of the promise which follow, ' and I
will give thee a crown of life,' compare 2 Esdr. ii. 42-47,
which, however, it can hardly be doubted is the interpola-
tion of some later Christian hand (see Liicke, Offenb. d.
Johan. p. 155, 2d edit.). This ' crown of life,'' always
II. 10.] SMYRNA, REV. II. 8-1 1. 115
remaining in its essence the same, is not the less desig-
nated by a rich variety of images. Here, and with St.
James (i. 12), it is 'a crown of life ;' with St. Paul, 'a
crown of righteousness ' (2 Tim. iv. 8 ; cf. Plutarch,
Philop. et Flam. 3 : SiKaioavirrjs kol ^prjcrTorrjros crri-
<pavos), i a crown of rejoicing ' {Kav^a-sws, I Thess. ii.
] 9) ; with St. Peter, ' a crown of glory ' ( 1 Pet. v. 4 ; cf.
Heb. ii. 9); with Isaiah, 'a crown of beauty ' (lii. 3,
ars<pavos koXKovs, LXX. ; cf. StdSrjpia rou /cdWovs,
Wisd. v. 17) ; with Solomon, ' a crown of graces ' {^api-
rwv, Prov. i. 9) ; with the same ' a crown of rich abund-
ance ' (rpvcpfjs) ; with the Son of Sirach, ' a crown of
exultation ' {dyaWidfiaTos, Ecclus. vi. 31); with the
same ' a crown of wisdom ' (aocpias, i. 18); in the M art. S.
Polycarpi, ' a crown of incorrwption ' (dcpdapaia?, xvii.
19 ; cf. Eusebius, H. E. v. I : /xsyas rrjs cupdapaias <tts-
(pavos) ; for Ignatius, ' a crown of conflict ' (dOX-tjascos,
Mart. 5, with probable reference to 2 Tim. ii. 5); for
Philostratus, Vit. Apoll. 7, 14, 'a crown of virtue '
{dperrjs) ; for Clement of Alexandria ' a crown of ama-
ranth ' (Pcedag. 2) ; for Sophocles ' a crown of fair fame '
(svKXstas, Ajax,4$7). Whether Lucian intended a sneer
at these glorious promises of the Scripture, when he intro-
duces the impostor Peregrinus, who had been among the
Christians, though he died a Cynic, to declare his inten-
tion of setting, by a voluntary death, a golden crown on a
golden life (j^pvcrcp /3/<w ^pvcrr/v Kopcovrjv sTriOsivai, De
Mort. Pereg. § 33), may be questionable. That he has
many such scoffs at the promises of Scripture, as at its
miracles and other facts, no one who has at all studied
the subject will be disposed to deny.
But a question offers itself here, Is this ' crown ' the
diadem of royalty (fiaaiXziov, 2 Sam. i. 10; 2 Chron.
1 2
116 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [il. 10.
xxiii. II, lxx.), or the garland of victory, 'Krone' or
' Kranz ' ? I believe the former. It is quite true that
crrscpavos is seldom used in this sense, much oftener
SuiBrjfxa (see my Synonyms of the New Testament, § 23) ;
yet the ' golden crowns ' (a-rscpavoi) of ch. v. can only be
royal crowns (cf. ver. 10) ; crrefyavos too is the word by
which all the Evangelists designate the crown of thorns,
evidently a caricature of royalty, which was planted on
the Saviour's brows. Did we indeed meet these words,
i a crown of life,' in the Epistles of St. Paul, we should be
justified in saying that in all likelihood the wreath or
garland of the victor in the games, the ' crown ' in thig
sense, was intended. St. Paul was familiar with the Greek
games, and freely drew his imagery from them ( 1 Cor. ix.
24-27 ; Phil. iii. 12 ; I Tim. vi. 12 ; 2 Tim. ii. 5 ; iv. 7) ;
does not fear to contemplate the faithful under the aspect
of runners (dsoBpo/xoi, as Ignatius, ad Philad. c. ii., calls
them) and wrestlers in the games. His universal culture,
his Hellenic as well as Jewish education, exempted him
from any scruples in the employment of illustrations like
these. In the same manner he speaks on two occasions
of being poured out, and poured out as a libation ; in
which passages (Phil. ii. 1752 Tim. iv. 6) it is difficult
not to think that he had the heathen sacrifices in his eye ;
at the same time this cannot be regarded as certain. Not
so, however, the Christians of Palestine. Greek games
and Greek sacrifices were strange to them, or only not
strange, as they were the objects of their deepest abhor-
rence. This is sufficiently attested in the tumults and
troubles which accompanied the introduction of the games
by Herod the Great at Jerusalem, recorded at length by
Josephus (Antt. xv. 8. 1-4). Nor indeed was this then
for the first time seen. A similar attempt at an earlier day
II. 10.] SMYRNA, REV. II. 8-1 1. 117
helped not a little to fill up the cup of wrath which at
length ran over in the rising of the Maccabees, and over-
throw of the Greco-Syrian rule (i Mace. i. 14 ; 2 Mace. iv.
12-20). Tertullian's point of view, who styles them
(Scorp. 6) ' contentiosa solemnia et superstitiosa certamina
Grascarum et religionum et voluptatum,' would very much
have been theirs. And then, to me at least, decisive on
this point is the fact, that nowhere else in the Apocalypse
is there found a single image drawn from the range of
heathen antiquity. The Book moves exclusively in the
circle of Jewish imagery — either sacred or cabalistic ; of
imagery derived mainly from the inmost recesses of the
temple service. The palms in the hands of the redeemed
who stand before the throne (vii. 9) may seem an excep-
tion to the universality of this rule ; but really are far
from so being. It is quite true that the palm was for
Greek and Koman a token of victory, but this ' palmife-
rous company,' to use Henry More's words, these happy
palmers, do not stand before the throne as conquerors, —
Tertullian's exposition, ' albati etpalmis victoria? insignes '
(Scorp. 12), being at fault, — but as those who keep the
true Feast of Tabernacles, the feast of rest, of all the weary
toil in the wilderness accomplished and ended. As such,
and to mark them for what they are, they bear, according
to the injunctions of the Old Testament, the branches of
palms in their hands (Lev. xxiii. 40 ; cf. Neh. viii. 1 5 ;
2 Mace. x. 7; John xii. 13 ; Josephus, Antt. xii. 13. 5);
see some beautiful remarks on this point by Hengstenberg
(in loc.\ in part anticipated by Vitringa. I must needs
then believe that these are royal crowns (cf. Ps. xxi. 3 ;
exxxii. 18), not victorious garlands, which the great
Kewarder is promising here.1
1 The use on two occasions of Ipis for the rainbow (Rev. iv. 3 ;
118 EPISTLES TO THE SETEX CZUECHES IX ASIA. [n. II.
Ver. ii. i He that hath an ear. let him hear ichat the
" - " '.he Churches : He that oi-. shall
: urt of the see leathJ — This ' second cL
setting forth, as it does, the ' vita non vitalis,' the death
in life of the lost, as contrasted with the life in death of
the saved, is a phrase peculiar to the Apocalypse | cf. xx.
6. 14 : xxi. S 1 : but is not uncommon in the later Jewish
theology ; indeed frequent in the Chaldee Paraphrase ;
Vitringa : ' Phrasis nata haud duhie in schola sanctorum
virorum qui fidem et spem Ecclesia? post reditum ex exilio
Babylonico explicarunt." But though the o:ord is not on
the lips of the Lord during his earthly life, He does not
shrink from proclaiming the fearful th ing. The Bevrspos
Oararos of this Book is the yeanm of Matt. v. 29; Mark
43-48 : Luke xii. 5 : the /c6\a<ris aldivios of Matt.xxv.
46 ; and from this Book itself receives this awful inter-
pretation, namely, that it, the second death, is the lake of
20. 14). The phrase is itself a solemn witness and
protest against the Sadduceeism and Epicureanism, which
would make death natural the end-all of mans existence.
As there is a life beyond this present life for the faithful,
so a death beyond the death which falls under our eye for
the wicked : 0 Svrms tPuvaros, as it is called in the Ej
to I) -.10. 'Vita damnatorum mors est,' is the
fearful gloss of Augustine ; and ag.v. - v. ccevi. 5
' Mors vocatur, et nemo ibi moritur ; satius et melius
dixerim, nemo ibi vivit.' And Philo, though, so far as
I am aware, he does not know this phrase, ' tf. - -
'has a terrible commentary upon it <Be Pro.
■ '. 2 : ai'6pct)7roi fief yap Tspas n/u»ptmi s '.: m iop.i-
Koveri 6a.va.T0: ' h ok n ~- <acrTrjpiu) pui-fis =7-.:
instead of the more usual rogor {Gen. ix. 13; Ezefc . :.
a nearer to an exception from the general rale
ii. ii.~ - :.:".. uet. n. S-n. 119
- i ap-^rj. And going on to ask wh il - the pa
ment of the ungodly, he answers, ^fjv dm vOpijamwwm
Km -,: — :: _.:a ^azaror a^ai^aroi' inro/iewea a -;.-.-
7-77-01-, with more to the same effect : ::. L- L 33.
S mnch has been idly written upon names, not a little
most idly on the names of \h Ten Churches, and the
mystical meanings which they contain, that one shrinks
from any seeming fellowship in such slight and unprofit-
able fancies ; and yet it is difficult not to remember here
that rmvprm, the name of this suffering Church which
should give out its sweetness in persecution and in death,
is -ubform of p.vppa 1 Lobeck. J - . :_: ; and that
myrrh, an aromatic gum of Arabia, served for embalming
the dead (John xi't. 39 : •::. Her>i::,:s. ii. 40, S6), went up
as incense before the Lord (Exod. xtt. 2 ~- . - ne of the
perfumes of the bridegroom Pa - . B . and of the bride
(Cant. iii. 6). All this Vitringa has excellently u: _
• Myrrha itaque nobis hie symboHce flgurat grav: :-- Bc-
clesise afflictiones, a ma ras equidem et ingratas carni. — _-
- -::.:. quod ad tempus pne--:.-. — I ex quibus fro
oh etc - " ;. >olet enim ea; Deos sua proci-
dentia Ecclesiae immittere. ut electos et elect orum fidem
- a corr - . rt illos hoc etiam medio ~
" id immortalitatem, et fragrant ._? conciliet
jiam virtutum Christianarum, quarum esrr: :::ui_
peraeenlaones '-. . - nleni - -
III.
EPISTLE TO THE CHUECH OF PEEGAMUM.
Eev. ii. 12-17.
Ver. 12. ' And to the Angel of the Church in Pergamos
write.' — A word or two may fitly find place here on the
name of this city, as it appears in our Authorized Version.
In the first place, why do our Translators, writing ' Per-
gamos^ and not ' Pergamus,' retain a Greek termination
for it, and for it alone, among similar proper names ?
' Assos ' (Acts xx. 13, 14) is not a parallel case, for the
Eomans wrote ' Assos ' as frequently as ' Assus ; ' and
always wrote ' Chios,' which therefore is quite correct
(Acts xx. 15). But if 'Pergamos,' then, by the same
rule, * Ephesos,' ' Miletos,' ' Timotheos,' and many more.
And even against ' PergamusJ though preferable to Per-
gamos f there would still be something to object. In-
stances of the feminine, rj Ylepyafios (Ptolemy, i. 2), are
excessively rare (see Lobeck, Phrynichus, p. 422) ; while
the neuter, to Uspyafiov in Greek, and ' Pergamum ' in
Latin, occur innumerable times (Xenophon, Anab. vii. 8.
8 ; Polybius, iv. 48. 2 ; Strabo, xiii. 4 ; Pliny, H. N. v. 33).
I shall speak throughout of the city under this its more
usual designation ; being that, therefore, which St. John, had
the word been employed by him in the nominative, which,
II. 13.] PEKGAMUM, KEY. II. 1 2- 1 7. 121
however, it is not, would in all likelihood have used. It was
another illustrious city of Asia ; sir^avr^s ttoXls in the lan-
guage of Strabo (xiii. 4); 'longe clarissimum Asise Perga-
mum ' in that of Pliny (H.N. v. 33). Although of high
antiquity, its greatness, splendour, and dignity did not date
very far back. It only attained these under the AtaSo^ot,
of whom one made Pergamum the capital of his kingdom —
the same kingdom which a later of his dynasty, Attalus III.,
bequeathed to the Eomans (b.c. 133). It was famous as
the birthplace of Galen, next to Hippocrates the most
illustrious physician of the ancient world ; famous too for
its splendid library, collected in rivalry with that of
Alexandria; our 'parchment' (pergamenum) deriving its
name from thence ; for magnificent temples of Zeus, of
Athene, and of Apollo ; but most of all for the worship
of iEsculapius (Tacitus, Annal. iii. 63 ; Xenophon, Anab.
vii. 8. 23), the remains of whose temple outside the walls
of the city with not a few other magnificent ruins, may
still be seen. On the architectural splendours of the city
which still survive there is a most interesting paper in
the Revue des Deux Mondes, April 1881, while a letter
in the Times, Dec. 28 of the same year, is full of informa-
tion on several of the ruined cities of Asia Minor, this
included ; and on all the costly treasures of art which still
wait an ingathering there. — ' These things saithHe which
hath the sharp sword with two edges,'' or, not to make a
variation in the English wherein the Greek there is none,
for ' the sharp sivord with two edges ' read ' the sharp two-
edged sivord ; ' cf. i. 16.
Ver. 13. i 1 knoiv thy works, and where thou divellest,
even where Satan's seat is.' — This may not sound, at the
first hearing, a reassuring word ; and yet indeed it is emi-
nently such. None of the peculiar difficulties and dangers
122 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHU11CHES IN ASIA. [il. 1 3.
which beset the Church at Pergamum are concealed from
Christ. We indeed ask now, and it is not easy to answer
the question, Why should Pergamum more than any other
corrupt heathen city have been ' Satan's seat,' or ' Satan s
throne,' as in the E. V. it more accurately is rendered ; for
as Opovos is constantly in this Book translated ' throne '
when applied to the powers of heaven (iv. 2, 4, 5, 6, 9,
1 o ; v. 1 , and often), it should be so also when applied to
the hellish caricature of the heavenly kingdom ; to the
kingdom which the rulers of the darkness of this world
seek to set up over against the kingdom of light. The
question has been variously answered. Ewald, and many
before him, find allusion here to the fane of iEsculapius,
— ©sos 'SwTijp he was called, — where lying miracles of
healing were vaunted to be performed, Satan seeking by
the aid of these to counterwork the work of the Gospel.
His worship no doubt was very prevalent here (' Pergameus
Deus ' Martial calls him) ; yet for all this the explanation
is quite insufficient. All which we can securely conclude
from this language is that from one cause or another Per-
gamum enjoyed the bad pre-eminence of being the head-
quarters in these parts of resistance to Christ and his
Gospel. Why it should have thus deserved the name of
' Satan's throne,' so emphatically repeated a second time
at the end of this verse, ' tvhere Satan dwelleth,' must
remain one of the unsolved riddles of these Epistles.
Some circumstances, of which no certain notice has reached
us, may have especially stirred up the fanaticism of the
heathen there.
* And thou holdest fast my name, and hast not denied
my faith, even in those days wherein Antipas was my
faithful martyr, who was slain among you, where Satan
divelleth.' — There is a confused multitude of small \aria-
II. I 3.] PEEGAMUM, KEV. II. I 2- 1 7. 123
tions of reading here, though none seriously affecting the
sense. There was probably an anacoluthon in the sen-
tence originally, which transcribers would not let be ; but
attempted by various devices to palliate or remove (see
H. Ewald, Johan. Script, vol. ii. p. 67). It is evident
from the testimony borne here to the Pergamene Church,
that many there, probably the Angel himself, had shown
an honourable steadfastness in the faith ; had been con-
fessors of it ; though possibly only one, Antipas, had
resisted, or had been called to resist, unto blood. Eusebius
(H. E. iv. 15) records several martyrs who at a somewhat
later day were at Pergamum faithful to death, and received
a crown of life. Attalus also, it may be mentioned, who
played so valiant a part in the persecutions of Lyons and
Vienne, and won a foremost place in that noble company
of Grallic martyrs, was a Pergamene (ib. v. I, 14, 38, 47).
Of Antipas, except from the glorious record which the
Lord bears to him here, we know absolutely nothing. It
is difficult to understand the silence of all ecclesiastical
history respecting so famous a martyr, one singled out by
Christ to such honour as this ; for silent in regard of him
ecclesiastical history must be confessed to be ; that which
Tertullian (Scorp. 12) and other early writers tell us
about him, being merely devised in fugam vacui, and
drawn exclusively from the passage before us. They
manifestly know nothing about him except what they
find here. Later Latin martyrologies, of course, know a
great deal. According to these he was Bishop of Perga-
mum, and by command of Domitian was shut up, Perillus-
like, in a brazen bull, afterwards made red-hot ; and by
this painful passage entered into life. Hengstenberg has
a curious explanation of this name, though it is not per-
fectly original ; he has derived at least the hint of it from
124 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [il. 1 4.
Aretius. Pressing the fact that almost all other names,
he would say all, are symbolic in this Book, as Jezebel,
Balaam, Egypt, Sodom, Babylon, Jerusalem, he urges that
this must be symbolic too. But 'Aim7ra?, what is it but a
word formed on the same model as 'Azm'xpio-Tos ? and as
this is made up of avri and ^picrros, so 'AvtIttcis of avri
and iras, and Antipas is one who for Christ's sake has
dared to stand out against all, an avrUocrpLos : cf. Jer. xx.
10; xv. 10, ' Woe is me, my mother, that thou hast borne
me a man of strife and a man of contention to the tvhole
earth ; ' which must be the character and condition of an
eminently godly man set in the midst of a world which
lieth in the wicked one (Jam. iv. 4; Acts iv. 19; v. 29).
A later commentator contemptuously dismisses this with
the observation that W.vTiTras is only an abbreviation of
'AvTLTrarpos, as Ni/cofxas of Nt/co/i^'S^s, M.r]va$ of Mtjvo-
Scopos, and the like. I am certainly not disposed to rate
this explanation higher than an ingenious fancy, a lusus
of the critic's art, but see little or no force in this argu-
ment against it. Antipas, once formed, enters into all the
rights which its new form confers upon it, irrespective of
the process by which it may have attained this form.
But it is not worth while to vindicate from an insufficient
objection what will not commend itself a whit the more,
even after this objection is set aside.
Ver. 14. ' But I have a few things against thee, because
thou hast there therm that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who
taught Balac to cast a stumbling block before the children
of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit
fornication.' — Those ' that hold the doctrine of Balaam '
must be identical with the Nicolaitans of ver. 6, 1 5 ; the
latter verse seems to leave no doubt on the matter. The
mention of Balaam as the tempter and seducer would of
IT. I4.] PERGAMTJM, REV. II. I2-I7. 125
itself sufficiently explain the nature of the sins to which
he tempted and seduced (Num. xxv. 1-9 ; xxxi. 15, 16);
but the sins are here expressly named. First, however,
something may be said on the words bs iStSaa/ce rS Ba\d/c,
which we, and I believe rightly, have rendered, ' who
taught Balac.'' Hengstenberg indeed, and Bengel before
him, on the strength of this dative, a dativus commodi as
they regard it, joined with the fact that BiBdcr/csiv habitually
governs an accusative of the person who is the object of
the teaching (thus ver. 20 in this very chapter), argue
that we ought to translate ' who taught for Balac,' that
is, in the interests of Balac, to please him. They allege
in support of this, that there is no hint in Scripture of
Balaam having suggested to Balac to put these temptations
in the way of the children of Israel ; the parting of the two
is recorded Num. xxiv. 25, nor is there any reason, they
urge, to suppose that they ever met again ; it was to the
Moabitish women themselves, to Balac's people, but not to
Balac himself, that Balaam suggested the placing these
stumbling blocks in their way. Assuredly this is a mis-
take. The construction proposed is much too artificial
for the Apocalypse ; the dative after eSiSaa/csv is the
penetrating of a Hebrew idiom through the forms of the
Greek language; and there is nothing at Num. xxxi. 16
to compel us to understand that Balaam's communication
with the daughters of Moab was immediate, and not
through the intervention of the king ; cf. Josephus, Antt.
iv. 6. 6, who takes this intervention for granted ; and
Vitringa, Obss. Sac. iv. 9. 29.
Two words claim attention here, a/cavSaXov and
£iBco\6$vtov. %/cdv8akov, a later form of aKav8d\r)0pov
(Aristophanes, Acharnen. 686), and o-fcavSa\i£siv (there is
no <Tfcav8a\T]0pi&w, see Host and Palm, Lex.), occur only
126 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [il. 14.
in the Septuagint and the New Testament, and in writings
immediately dependant upon these (see Suicer, Thes.
s. v.) ; being almost always in them employed in a tropi-
cal sense; Lev. xxix. 14 and Judith v. I are exceptions.
^icdvhaXov is properly a trap (joined often with irayis,
Josh, xxiii. 13 ; Ps. cxl. 9; Eom. xi. 9), or more precisely
that part of the trap on which the bait is laid, and the
touching of which causes the trap to close upon its prey
(' mobile decipulae tigillum,' Fritzsche on Eom. xiv. 13) ;
then generally any loop or noose set in the path, which
should entangle the foot of the unwary walker, and cause
him to stumble and fall; thus cncdv8a\ov=7rp6crtcofAfia
(Rom. xiv. 13) and cncav8a\l££iv = 7rpo(Tfc67rTEiv (Matt. iv.
6 ; Rom. ix. 32) ; and next any stone, or hindrance of any
kind (Hesychius explains it by s/j,7ro8i,cr/j.6$\ which should
have the same effect (i Pet. ii. 7). Satan, then, as the
Tempter, is the great putter of ' scandals,' ' stumbling
blocks,' or ' offences,' in the path of men ; his sworn
servants, a Balaam or a Jeroboam (1 Kin. xiv. 16), are the
same consciously ; while all of us, by careless walking, by
seeking what shall please ourselves rather than what shall
edify others (Rom. xiv. 15-23 ; I Cor. viii. 10), or by
counselling our brethren in the same sense (Matt. xvi. 23),
are in danger of unconsciously, but not unguiltily, being
the same ; there is none that is not deeply concerned in
the warning of Matt, xviii. 7. All have need to ask that
they may be what St. Paul prayed that the Philippians
(i. 10) might be, dirpocncoTroL themselves (the airrataroi of
Jude 24 rests on the same image), and that they may put
no 7rp6<TKo/jifia, no cncdv8a\ov, in the path of others.
Fi18o)\66vtov is a New Testament word to express what
the heathen sacrifices were, as they presented themselves
to the eye of a Christian or a Jew, namely things offered,
II. I4-] PERGAMUM, REV. II. 1 2-1 7. 127
not to God, but to idols.1 The Gentiles themselves ex-
pressed the same by IspcOvrov (which at I Cor. x. 28 is
the better reading, St. Paul there assuming a Gentile to
be speaking, and employing, if not an honourable, yet at
any rate a neutral, word), or by dzodvrov, which the Greek
purists preferred (Lobeck, Phrynichus, p. 139). It will
be worth while here to consider under what plea any who
so much as named the name of Christ could consent to
eat of these idol-meats, and yet claim to retain allegiance
to that name. The temptation to this was one which
addressed itself exclusively to the converts from heathen-
dom. Of those who attached themselves to the Church of
Christ from the stock of Abraham, we may be quite sure
that there was not one who was so much tempted to this
sin ; their whole previous education, training them into an
abhorrence of such defilement, was for them a sufficient
safeguard against it (Num. xxv. 2 ; Ps. cvi. 28 ; Dan. i. 8 ;
Tob. i. 10, 11). It was otherwise with the proselytes
from the heathen world ; with the Gentile Christians
gathered in, it might be, to the Church of Christ out of
some corrupt and luxurious Greek city, as Corinth for
example. Eefusal to partake in the idol-meats was for
one of these refusal to partake not merely in the idolatry
which he had renounced, but in very much else which he
was not at all so entirely prepared to forego. It involved
abstinence from almost every public and every private
festivity, a withdrawal in great part from the whole social
1 It is a notable example of the extreme inconsistency of our
Authorized Version in rendering the same 'word in different places,
that tl8cciXo8vTa is rendered in four different ways : it is ' meats offered
to idols ' (Acts xv. 29) ; it is ' things offered to idols ' (Acts xxi. 25) ;
it is ' things that are offered in sacrifice unto idols ' (1 Cor. viii. 4) ; it
is ' things sacrificed unto idols' (Eev. ii. 14).
128 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHUECHES IN ASIA. [il. 14.
life of his time ; for sacrifice had in one way or other
bound itself up in almost every act of this social life. We
have a singular evidence of this in the fact that ' to kill '
and ' to sacrifice ' had in Greek almost become identical ;
dvsiv, which had originally meant the latter, meaning the
former now. The poor man, offering a slain beast, after
the priest and the altar had received their shares, would
sell the remainder in the market ; the rich would give this
which remained over away. From one cause or another
there was a certainty at many entertainments of meeting
these sacrificial meats, there was a possibility of meeting
them at all. The question therefore was one which, like
that of caste at the present day in India, would continually
obtrude itself, which could not be set aside and its pre-
sence ignored.1
Already we find at the Council of Jerusalem the Apo-
stles resolving that among the few ' necessary things ' (Acts
xv. 28) which must be imperatively required of the Gen-
tile converts, abstinence from ' the pollutions of idols '
(ver. 20), or, as in the more formal decree it is expressed,
1 meats offered to idols ' (ver. 29), was one. Some two
years later various cases of conscience have occurred ex-
actly in that Church where beforehand we might have
looked for them, namely at Corinth, and St. Paul has
been called upon to give his judgment about them. Some
it would seem there, who boasted of their yvaxris, affirmed
that they saw through the whole heathen idolatry, saw
that it was a fraud and a lie ; to them an idol was nothing ;
what fear then that they should become partakers with the
idol through partaking of the idol-meats ? and these, in
1 See an excellent Essay on this subject in Dean Stanley's Com-
mentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians, with this title, The
Sacrificial Feasts of the Heathen, vol. i. pp. 149-152.
II. 1 4.] PERGAMUM, EEV. II. 1 2-1 7. 129
an exaggerated assertion of their liberty, sat openly at
meat in the very idol-temple itself (1 Cor. viii. 10). So
too at a somewhat later date, in Justin Martyr's Dialogue
with Trypho, the Jew Trypho makes it a charge against
the Christians that many of them partook of idol-sacrifices,
affirming that they were in no way injured by them (c.
35); to whom the Christian Father replies that these
Marcionites, Valentinians, and the rest, might usurp the
name of Christian, but that the Catholic Church repu-
diated them utterly, in no way acknowledged them as her
children. From Irenseus (i. 6. 3) we learn that they not
merely thus ate of the idol-meats, boasting that they were
in nothing defiled by them, but took a foremost share in
the celebration of the heathen festivals. Others, in an
opposite extreme and excess of scrupulosity, were greatly
troubled lest the meat they innocently bought in the
market, or partook of at the house of a heathen friend,
might have been offered in sacrifice, and so they unwit-
tingly defiled (i Cor. x. 25, 27). All will no doubt re-
member the wonderful wisdom and love wherewith St.
Paul treats these various cases, strengthening and guiding
the weak, rebuking and restraining the strong or those
that thought themselves strong. Some, however, of these
latter continued to allow themselves in these dangerous
liberties, degenerating only too easily into scandalous
excesses ; although, after such decisions, first of the Council
at Jerusalem, and afterwards of St. Paul, not any longer
within the bosom of the Church, but without it ; and one
may see in the Nicolaitans the legitimate spiritual de-
scendants of those Gnostics (Gnostics at least in the bud),
who were not brought back to humbler, more loving, more
self-denying courses by the earnest remonstrances of the
Apostle. — In the same way as we have at Acts xv. 20, the
K
130 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [il. 1 6.
prohibition of fornication, joined with that of eating
things offered to idols, so here the two sins are linked
together. The impure character of the heathen festivals
caused that the two constantly went hand in hand (Euse-
bius, H. E. iv. 7. 10).
Ver. 15. ' So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine
of the Nicolaitans.' The concluding words of this verse,
' which thing I hate,' have no right to a place in the text,
having been transferred from ver. 6 of this same chapter.
As Balac had Balaam, a false prophet and seducer, so
had the Angel of Pergamum some that held the doctrine
of the Nicolaitans ; and whom he notwithstanding en-
dured. In this matter the Angel of Ephesus had more
of the mind of Christ than he had (ver. 6) ; wanting as
he did that earnest hatred of evil, which should have made
such a presence and such a teaching intolerable to him ;
while of that other Ephesian Angel it could be said, that
what Christ hated, he hated too.
Ver. 1 6. ' Repent ; ' or ' Repent therefore, — or else I will
come unto thee quickly, and will fight against them with
the sivord of my mouths — Out of this feebleness of moral
indignation against evil it had come to pass that this Angel
had not testified with sufficient energy against the Nico
laitans and their doctrine ; he could not say with Paul, ' I
am pure from the blood of all men ' (Acts xx. 26). But
now repenting and faithfully witnessing against their
errors, he would either recover them for the truth, or else
drive them wholly from the communion of the Church, —
in either case a gain. But this if he fail to do, the Lord
will come quickly, and fight against them with the sword
of his mouth. We have, I am persuaded, another allusion
here to the history of Balaam, namely to Num. xxxi. 8 (cf.
Josh. xiii. 22) : ' Balaam also, the son of Beor, they slew
II. 1 7.] PEEGAMUM, KEY. II. I 2- 1 7. 131
with the sword ; ' this sword of the children of Israel
being indeed the sword of God ; cf. Num. xxii. 3 1 . Vi-
tringa : ' Verba haec manifeste respiciunt historiam Bi-
leami : in qua habemus, primo quidem, Angelum Domini
stricto ense se Bileamo, populo Dei maledicere medi-
tanti, in via opposuisse, et, si instituto perseveraret,
exitium illi minatum esse ; deinde Bileamum, et Israel-
ites qui consilium illius secuti fuerant, jussu Dei gladio
periisse.*
In that, * I will fight against them,' it might seem at
first sight as if there was only a threat for these ungodly
workers ; and not for the Angel who had been faithful in
the main, nor for the better portion of the Church. But
this is not so. When God has a controversy with a Church
or with a people, the tribulation reaches all, however the
judgment may be only for his foes. The gold and the
dross are cast alike into the furnace, the dross to be
consumed in it, the gold to come out from it purer than
before. The holy prophet is entangled outwardly in the
same doom with the ungodly king ( Jer. xxxix. 4 ; xliii. 6 ;
cf. Matt. xxiv. 20, 21). There may be, there assuredly
will be, on the part of the faithful, a separation from the
sin — there is seldom an exemption from the suffering - of
such a time. This suffering finds out all. It is well
that it should be so ; that there should be nothing in the
usual course of God's judgments to flatter in any the self-
ish hope of avoiding a share in the woe. Enough for any
to escape the woe within the woe, namely, the sense of
this suffering as the utterance of the just wrath of God.
Ver. 1 7. ' He that hath an ear, let him hear what the
Spirit saith unto the Churches ; To him that overcometh
will I give to eat of the hidden manna.' — Omit the words
' to eat.' — Doubtless allusion is here to the manna which
X 2
5 32 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [il. \J.
at God's express command Moses caused to be laid up
before the Lord in the Sanctuary (Exod. xvi. 32-34;
cf. Heb. ix. 4). This manna, as being thus laid up in the
Holy Place, obtained the name of ' hidden,' — ' occultatum '
or' reconditum,' as Cocceius presses that it should be
rendered, not ' occultum ; ' for it is not /cpvirrov in the
original, but /csfcpv/A/xevov ; not therefore ' latens manna '
as in Tertullian (Scorp. 12), but ' absconditum' as in the
Vulgate. It is true that many commentators, as Heng-
stenberg, omit any reference to this, and some expressly
deny that any such reference exists ; but Vitringa rightly :
' Ducit autem phrasis nos manifeste ad cogitandum de
manna illo, quod ex jussu Dei in urna reponendum erat in
sacratissimo Tabernaculi conclavi, per divinam providen-
tiam ab omni corruptione praeservandum ; quod manna
vere symbolum fuit Christi virtute obedientiae suae in cae-
lum translati, et ibi delitescentis, usque quo Ecclesia
ipsius luctam suam in his terris absolverit.' The question,
what we shall exactly understand by this ' hidden manna,'
and the eating of it, has not always been answered with
precision. Origen characteristically understands by it the
inner mystical sense of Scripture as distinguished from
the outward form and letter (Horn. 9 in Exod?) : ' Urna
mannas reposita, intellectus Verbi Dei subtilis et dulcis.'
For the Mystics it is in general that grace and goodness of
God which can only be known by those who have themselves
actually tasted it ; thus one of these : ' Hujus spiritualis
et occulti mannae sapor latet in occulto, nisi gustando sen-
tiatur.' I take it, however, that this ' hidden manna '
represents a more central benefit even than these ; more-
over, like all the other promises of these Epistles, it repre-
sents a benefit pertaining to the future kingdom of glory,
and not to the present kingdom of grace. I would not
II. 1 7. J PERGAMUM, EEV. II. I 2- 1 7. 133
indeed affirm that this promise has not prelibations which
will be tasted in the present time ; for the life eternal
commences on this side of the grave, and not first on the
other ; and here in the wilderness Christ is the bread
from, heaven, the bread of God, the true manna, of which
those that eat shall never die (John vi. 31-33, 48-51).
Nay, more than this ; since his Ascension He is in some
sort a ' hidden manna ' for them now. Like that manna
laid up in the Sanctuary before the Testimony, He too,
withdrawn from sight, but in a human body, and bearing
our flesh, is yet exempted from the law of corruption
under which all other children of men have lain (Exod.
xvi. 20, 33, 34; Acts ii. 27, 31). But this promise of the
gift of ' the hidden manna ' is misunderstood, or at any
rate is scanted of its full meaning, unless we look on to
something more and higher than this. The words imply
that, however hidden now, it shall not remain hidden ever-
more ; and the best commentary on them is to be found
at 1 Cor. ii. 9 ; I John iii. 2. The seeing of Christ as He
is, of the latter passage, and through this beatific vision the
being made like to Him, is identical with this eating of
the hidden manna ; which shall, as it were, be then brought
forth from the sanctuary, the Holy of Holies of God's im-
mediate presence, where it was withdrawn from sight so
long, that all may partake of it ; the glory of Christ, now
shrouded and concealed, being then revealed at once to
his people and in them (Col. iii. 4). Alcuin : ' Apte ergo
ilia satietas cselestis glorias manna [absconditum ?] voca-
tur, quia juxta Pauli vocem nee oculus vidit, nee in cor
hominis ascendit, quae prseparavit Deus diligentibus se.'
Richard of St. Victor quotes in illustration Ps. xxx. 20 :
' Quam magna multitudo dulcedinis fuse, Domine, quam
abscondisti timentibus te.'
134 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [il. \J,
There has been, and there will be again, occasion to
observe, that in almost all these promises there is a pecu-
liar adaptation of the promise to the self-denial by which
it will have been won. Witsius notes this here, and draws
out very beautifully the inner sweetness of this promise
(Miscell. Sac. vol. i. p. 692): 'Eas [profanas epulas] si
quis generosa hdei constantia, una cum omnibus blandien-
tis seculi deliciis atque illiciis fortiter spreverit, sciat se
satiatum iri suavissimis divinae tarn gratia? quam glorias
epulis, quarum suavitatem nemo rite aestimare novit, nisi
qui gustavit. Propterea autem mannce absconditce compa-
rantur, id est, illi qua? in urna, aurea, in abdito loco asser-
vanda, coram facie Jehovse seposita fuit, I. Quia quod
pisecipuum est in ilia dulcedinis Christi participatione
reservatur cum Christo in caelis (Col. iii. 3 ; 2 Tim. i. 12).
II. Quia mundanorum hominum nemo dulcedinem hujus
novit (Joh. xiv. 17) ; immone ipsi fideles quidem antequam
experiantur (1 Joh. iii. 2). III. Quia communioista non
in diem est, uti manna quotidiana, sed perpetua, uti ilia
quae seposita coram Domino a putrefactione et vermibus
immunis erat (Joh. vi. 27), et propterea profanis Perga-
mensium epulis immensum anteferenda.'
' And ivill give him a white stone, and in the stone a
new name written, which no man knoiveth saving he that
receiveth it.' — ' White ' is everywhere the colour and livery
of heaven ; and nowhere with a greater or so great an
emphasis, or with so frequent iteration, as in this Book.
Thus of the Son of God we are told, ' His head and his
hairs were white like wool, as w hite as snow' (i. 14). Then
besides this ' white stone ' we have ' white raiment ' (iii. 5),
' white robes' (vii. 9), ' a white cloud' (xiv. 14), ' fine linen
clean and white ' (xix. 8, 14), ' white horses' (xix. 11, 14),
II. I7-] PERGAMUM, EEV. II. 1 2-1 7. 135
i a great white throne' (xx. n). With these passages
compare Dan. vii. 9 ; Matt. xvii. 2 ; xxviii. 3 ; Mark ix. 3 ;
xvi. 5; John xx. 12; Acts i. 10. The sense of the
fitness of white to serve as a symbol of absolute purity
speaks out in many ways ; it would do so singularly in the
Latin ' castus,' if Doderlein's suggestion (Led. Syn. vol. iii.
p. 196) that ' castus ' is a participle of ' candeo ' could be
admitted. It may be well to observe that ' white ' as this
colour of heaven, is not the mere absence of other colour,
not the dull ' albus,' but the bright ' candidus ; ' glistering
white — as is evident from many passages ; for instance,
from a comparison of Matt, xxviii. 3 and Luke xxiv. 4
with John xx. 12 ; of Eev. xx. 1 1 (\svkos Opovos) with its
original, Dan. vii. 9 (dpovos avrov <p\bg irvpos) ; and from
those passages just now referred to, which relate to the
Transfiguration. It is the character of intense white to
be shining ; thus 'niteo ' (= 'niviteo ') is connected with
* nix ; ' Xsvkos with * lux ' (see Donaldson, New Cratylus,
§ 269 ; Pott, Etym. Forsch. vol. iii. p. 247) ; Xsvkos and
Xajiirpos are used as convertible terms, Kev. xix. 8, 14;
while at Acts x. 30, Xev/cj) and \a/u,Trpa are different read-
ings; and at Cant. v. II, the Septuagint has Xsvkos and
Symmachus Xafiirpos.
And as ' white,' so also ' new ' belongs eminently to
this Book; being one of the key-words of it; He who
is the giver of this revelation everywhere setting forth
Himself as the only renewer of all which sin had made
old ; the author of a new creation even in the midst of a
decaying and dying world ; and thus we ha&ve besides the
'new name' here (cf. iii. 12), the ' new Jerusalem ' (iii.
12), the inew song ' (v. 9), the 'new heaven and the new
earth ' (xxi. 1), and finally ' all things new ' (xxi. 5) ; with
136 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [il. \J .
all which we may profitably compare Ps. xxxiii. 3 ; cxliv. 9 ;
Isai. xlii. 10; lxii. 2; lxv. 17; Jer. xxxi. 31 ; Ezek. xi.
1 9 ; xxxvi. 26.
But though it is not difficult to fix the symbolic signi-
ficance of ' white ' and ' new ' in this Book, it must be
freely admitted that we still wait an entirely satisfactory
explanation of this ' ivhite stone ' with the ' neiv name '
written in it. The greater number of expositors, especially
the older ones, start from an assumption to which no ob-
jection can be made, namely, that there was in ancient
times something festal, fortunate, of good omen, in white
pebbles or beans. Thus the Greek phrase \svkt) rj/xspa,
or \evfcbv rj/xap (iEschylus, Pers. 305), is commonly
derived from a custom ascribed to the Scythians or Thra-
cians, of indicating each happy day which they spent with
a white stone placed in an urn, each unhappy with a black.
After death, as those or these exceeded in number, their
lives were counted happy or miserable (Pliny, H. N. vii.
41 ; the Younger Pliny, Ejp. vi. 1 1 ; Martial, ix. 53 : ' Dies
nobis Signandi melioribus lapillis,' xii. 34). Or there is
another explanation of the ' white day,' connecting it still
with the white stone or bean, I mean that given by Plu-
tarch in his Life of Pericles, c. 64. At the siege of Samos,
fearing that his soldiers would be weary with its length (I
quote North's translation), ' he divided his army into eight
companies, whom he made to draw lots, and that company
which lighted upon the white bean, they should be quiet
and make good cheer, while the other seven fought. And
they say that from thence it came that when any have
made good cheer, and taken pleasure abroad, they do yet
call it a white day, because of the white bean.'
But how, it may be asked, is all this brought to bear
on the promise of the ' ivhite stone ' to the faithful here ?
II. iy.~] PERGAMUM, REV. II. \2-\J . 137
The earliest attempt to find help in this quarter is that
of the Greek commentator Andreas. He sees allusion in
these words to the white pebble, by placing which in the
ballot-box the Greek judges pronounced the sentence of
acquittal {^rr\^>oi aco^ovaac they were therefore called), as
by the black of condemnation ; a custom expressed in the
well-known lines of Ovid (Metam. xv. 41, 42) : —
' Mos erat antiquus, niveis atrisque lapillis,
His damnare veos, illis absolvere culpse.'
But, not to speak of a grave fault, of which I shall
presently speak, common to this and almost every other
explanation of these words which is offered, this one is
manifestly inadequate ; the absolving pebble was not given
to the acquitted, as this is to the victor, nor do we hear of
any name written upon it.
Others see allusion to the tessera (it too was called
■tyfj(f)os), which the conquerors at the Olympic or other
solemn games (the oXv/jlttiovI/ccii, ispovlicai) received from
the master of the games ; which -i^^os- gave ever after to
him who received it certain honorary distinctions and privi-
leges, as for example, the right of free access to the public
entertainments. So Arethas, Gerhard (Loci Theoll. vol. ii.
p. 327), and others ; while Vitringa is obliged to confess
that he can only explain the symbol by combining to-
gether these two customs of the absolving pebble, and
the tessera given to the victor in the games ; which two
in the higher interpretation must be blended into one :
■ Ut tamen verum fatear, probabile videri possit Dominum
orationem suam hoc loco ita temperasse,utnon ad simplicem
aliquem ritum, apud Graecos receptum, hie loci alluserit, sed
phrasin suam mutuatus sit a duobus illis ritibus supra com-
memoratis, inter se compositis, qui licet diversi fuerint gen-
eris, in tertio tamen, quod dicitur, inter se conveniebant.'
138 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [il. I J.
But all these explanations, and others which it would
be tedious to enumerate, even if they were more satisfac-
tory, and they appear to me most unsatisfactory, are af-
fected with the same fatal weakness, namely, that they are
borrowed from heathen antiquity, while this Book moves
exclusively within the circle of sacred, that is, of Jewish,
imagery and symbols ; nor is the explanation of its sym-
bols in any case to be sought beyond this circle. All which
on this matter was said in respect of the ' croivn of life '
(ii. 10) finds its application here. It is true that Heng-
stenberg, whose interpretation I have not yet mentioned,
avoids this mistake, but only by, in fact, denying that the
* white stone ' means anything at all. It has for him no
significance or independent value of its own, being intro-
duced merely for the sake of the ' new name ' which is
written upon it, and that it may serve as a vehicle for this
name, being as such entirely subordinate to it. Few, I am
persuaded, reading the words of the promise, with the emT
phasis which the Lord lays on the twice-repeated mention
of the stone, and noting the independent place which it
occupies as itself a gift, whatever other gifts might be
associated with it, will be content to acquiesce in this, or
to regard as a solution what is in fact merely an evasion,
of the difficulty which the words present.
But to return. The first necessary condition of any in-
terpretation which should be accepted as satisfactory being
this, that it should be sacred and not heathen, at the same
time this is not the only one. There appear to me two
other necessary conditions, the non-fulfilment of which is
fatal to any exposition ; the fulfilment of them, on the
contrary, not being itself proof that the right interpreta-
tion has been seized ; but only a conditio sine qua, non,
and up to a certain point implying a probability that this
II. 17.] PERGAMDM, REV. II. 1 2- 1 7. 139
has been attained. Besides thus being Hebrew or sacred,
and not heathen or profane, which I believe is the universal
law of all Apocalyptic symbolism, the solution must in this
particular instance refer to the wilderness period of Jewish
history, in the same way as the ' hidden manna ' does. I
must ask the reader to suspend his demand for a proof of
this assertion till we have reached the very last of the pro-
mises, when the course, order, and succession of them all
will be considered. And, in the second place, it must be
capable of being brought into some unity with that other
promise, ' To him that overcometh will I give to eat of
the hidden manna ; ' there must be some bond of con-
nexion between the two. I conclude this not merely
from the natural fitness of things, but from the analogy of
all the other promises made to the other Churches. In
every other case the promise is either absolutely single,
as at ii. 7, 1 1 ; iii. 2 1 ; or single in its central idea, as at
ii. 26-28 ; iii. 5, 12, which I shall have the opportunity
of showing. This being so, it is very improbable that the
present should be an exception to the rule, and that here
two entirely disparate promises should be arbitrarily
linked together.
The only solution I know which fulfils all these con-
ditions, is one proposed by Zullig (Offenb. Johannis, vol. i.
pp. 408-454). It has found no favour or acceptance
whatever, having been indeed by him encumbered with so
many absurdities that this could scarcely have been other-
wise. Fully acknowledging my obligations to him for the
original suggestion of it, and for some of the arguments
by which it is supported, I must yet claim to set it forth
independently of him, nor is he in any way responsible
for my statement of it.
Starting then from a reconsideration of the word
140 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [il. \J.
yjrrjcfios, this, it may be observed, is sometimes used in the
later Greek for a precious stone ; thus -^rrjcfjos Sa/crvXi/ci],
the gem in a seal-ring worn on the finger. Neither is
there in the epithet \svkos (not ' albus,' but ' candidus ')
anything which renders this unlikely here, but rather the
contrary ; a diamond, for instance, being of the purest
glistering white. The yfrrj(f)os \svktj then may be, not
what we commonly begin with taking for granted it must
be, a white pebble, but a precious stone, shining white, a
diamond. But may not the mysterious Urim and Thum-
mim have been exactly this ? First, let me observe, by
way of preoccupying a difficulty on the threshold, that
whatever this may have been, it was not two things, but two
names for one and the same thing (see Bahr, Symbolik d.
Mos. Cult. vol. ii. pp. 109, no); often therefore called
only the Urim (Num. xxvii. 21 ; 1 Sam. xxviii. 6).
Sparing my readers the learning which might easily be
transcribed to any amount from the many elaborate
treatises devoted to the inquiry as to what this Urim and
Thummim might be, I will state the conclusions to which
those who have studied the matter most profoundly have
arrived. They are agreed that it was some precious
thing which the High Priest bore within the Choschen,
or square breastplate of judgment; this being doubled
back upon itself, to the end that like a purse it might
contain the treasure committed to it (Exod. xxviii. 15-30;
Lev. viii. 8), and with all its costly jewellery and elabo-
rate workmanship existing for this object, quite as much
as the ark existed for the sake of the tables of the law. But
what precious thing this Urim may have been is shrouded
in mystery ; only as that in the purse, and for which the
purse was made, is likely to have been more precious
than the purse itself, if that was set with its twelve
II. 1 7-] PERGAMUM, REV. II. I 2- 1 7. 141
precious stones, each with the name of a tribe engraven on
it, in this we are led to look for a stone rarer and more
costly than them all ; and it is certainly very noticeable
that among the twelve stones of the breastplate the dia-
mond does not appear ; for the mention of it in our Ver-
sion (Exod. xxviii. 18) is confessedly a mistake; — as though
this stone had been reserved for a higher honour and dig-
nity still.
Then further, no one knows, probably no one ever
knew, what was graven on the Urim ; except indeed the
High Priest ; who, consulting it that he might in some
way obtain through it lively oracles from God, in matters
which greatly concerned the weal or woe of the people
(Num. xxvii. 21 ; I Sam. xxiii. 9-12 ; xxx. 7, 8), could not
have remained ignorant of this. It is generally conjectured,
however, to have been the holy Tetragrammaton, the in-
effable name of God. It is difficult to conceive it to have
been anything else. I need hardly ask the reader who
has followed me thus far to note how well this agrees with
the words before us, ' and in the stone a new name written,
which no man knoiveth saving he that receiveth it.'' Many
are led away from the right interpretation of these last
words, by referring this ' receiveth it ' to the ' name,' and
not to the ' stone ; ' they read as though it was written,
i saving he that receiveth this name,'' — when, as I feel sure,
we ought to read it, ' saving he that receiveth this stone.'
They assume the overcomer's own name to be that written
on this stone ; and draw from these words an intimation
that, just as the mystery of regeneration is known only to
the new-born, so the yet higher glory of heaven only to
him that is partaker of it ( I Cor. xiii. 9) ; which all is most
true, and a new name is often used to express a new
blessedness (Isai. lxii. 2; lxv. 15); but yet it is not the
142 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [il. I J.
truth of the promise here. The ' neiv name ' here is
something even better than this. It is the new name
of God or of Christ, ' my new name' (cf. iii. 12); some
revelation of the glory of Grod, only in that higher state
capable of being communicated by Him to his people,
and which they only can understand who have actually
received ; for it is a knowing which is identical with a
being; and that word in old time ascribed to the Lord,
' My mystery is for Me, and for the sons of my house ' (cf.
Isai. xxiv. 10), stands fast, whether actually spoken by
Him, or only ascribed to Him (Clement of Alexandria,
Strom, v. 10. 64).
How excellently well the promise, so understood,
matches with the other promise of ' the hidden manna,''
which goes hand in hand with it. It was said at the out-
set of this inquiry, that there ought to be an inner bond
between the two parts of the promise ; and such, according
to this interpretation, there will be. * The hidden manna'
and the ' white stone ' are not merely united in time, be-
longing both to the wilderness period of the history of
God's people ; but they are united as both representing
high-priestly prerogatives, which the Lord should at length
impart to all his people, kings and priests to God, as He
will then have made them all. If any should be privileged
to eat of ' the hidden manna,' who but the High Priest,
who alone had entrance into the Holy Place where it was
laid up ? If any should have knowledge of what was
graven on the Urim, who but the same High Priest, in
whose keeping it was, and who was bound by his very
office to consult it ? The mystery of what was written
there, shut to every other, would be open to him. In lack
of any more satisfying explanation of the promise of the
' white stone ' with the '•new name ' written upon it, I
venture to suggest that the key to it may possibly be here.
IV.
EPISTLE TO THE CHURCH OF THYATIRA.
Eev. ii. 18-29.
Ver. 18. ' And unto the Angel of the Church in Thya-
tira write.'' — The Eoman road from Pergamum to Sardis
left Thyatira, as we are told by Strabo (xiii. 4), a little
to the left ; St. John is led ' in the Spirit ' by the same
route which he may often in time past have travelled in
the course of his apostolic visitations. Thyatira, a city
of no first-rate dignity, ' inhonora civitas ' the Elder Pliny
goes so far as to call it (v. 33), was a Macedonian colony
(Strabo, xiii. 4) ; and it may be looked at as a slight and
unintentional confirmation, in a minute particular, of the
historic accuracy of the Acts, that Lydia, a purple-seller of
Thyatira, is met in the Macedonian city of Philippi (Acts
xvi. 14), this being precisely what was likely to happen
from the close and frequent intercourse maintained be-
tween a mother city and its daughter colonies. From
this Lydia, whose heart the Lord had opened to attend to
the things spoken of Paul (Acts xvi. 14), the Church at
Thyatira may have taken its beginnings. She who had
gone forth for a while, to buy and sell and get gain, when
she returned home may have brought back with her far
richer merchandise than any she had looked to obtain.
' These things saith the Son of God, who hath his eyes
144 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [il. 1 9.
like unto aflame of fire, and his feet are like fine brass.'
The attributes which the Lord claims are again drawn
from the description of the first chapter, ver. 14, 15, which
see- The title 'Son of God' (cf. xix. 13) is not indeed
expressly and in so many words there ; but it is involved
in, and is the sum total of the impression left by, the whole
description. The actual form of this title is here drawn
from the second Psalm, ver. 9 ; as is plain from more than
one reference to that Psalm before this Epistle is ended ;
thus compare ver. 26 with Ps. ii. 8 ; and ver. 27 with ii. 9.
He who will presently give dominion to his servants, first
claims this dominion for Himself. The heathen have been
given to Him for an inheritance, else He could not give
them to his servants. If these servants of his are to rule
them with a rod of iron, and break them in pieces like a
potter's vessel, it is only as partakers in a power which He
has Himself first received.
Ver. 19. ' I knoiv thy works, and charity, and service,
and faith, and thy patience, and thy tvorks ; and the last
to be more than the first.'' — Omit ' and thy works ' on its
second occurrence, which has no right to a place in the
text, and which mars the symmetry of all. We shall then
have two pairs. First, ' thy charity and thy service,'' for
the article prefixed to all these words shows that the con-
cluding aov belongs to them all, — the ' charity,"1 or love,
being the more inward thing, the * service ' (hiaicovia) the
outward ministrations, the helps of all kinds shown first to
the household of faith, and then to all others, in which
this ' charity ' found its utterance (Acts xi. 29 ; I Cor.
xvi. 15 ; fteb. vi. 10). As the first pair have a very close
inner connexion, so have also the next pair, ' and thy faith
and thy patience.' It needs but to refer in proof to
Heb. xi. 27 : ' He endured, as seeing Him that is invisible ;'
II. 20.] THYATIRA, REV. II. lS-2C). 145
arid indeed Scripture everywhere declares that faith is the
root and source of all patient continuance in well-doing. —
' And the last to be more than the first.' The faithful in
Thyatira were growing and increasing in this service of
love, this patience of faith ; herein satisfying the desire of
Him, who evermore desires for his people that they should
abound more and more in all good things. How much
better this t« samara irXslova tmv Trptarwv than that of
which St. Peter elsewhere speaks as the state of some, ra
samara %s t ' p ova twv 7rpcoTcov (2 Pet. ii. 20; cf. Matt.
xii. 45), which, as regarded the most excellent grace of
all, the Lord has just declared to be the condition of the
Ephesian Church (ver. 4).
Ver. 20. ' Notwithstanding I have a few things against
thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which call-
eth herself a, prophetess, to teach and seduce my servants
to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto
idols.'' — Omit 'a few things' (6\iya), which has no busi-
ness in the text, having been brought here from ver. 14 ;
and change, as a consequence of this, ' because 'into ' that '
— but clo not change ' that woman ' into ' thy wife,' the
authority for the insertion of aov after tijv yvval/ca being
insufficient to justify this ; however there may be 'many
authorities, and some ancient, in its favour ' (R. V.) see Lee,
On the Revelation, pp. 527, 535. How many of the early
heretical leaders led about with them one who was neither
a wife nor a sister is sufficiently known to all, as a ' Simon
Magus his Helena,' that we speak not of others. The
whole condition of things at Thyatira was exactly the
reverse of the condition at Ephesus. There much zeal for
the maintenance of sound doctrine, a stiff orthodoxy, but
little love, and as a consequence, no doubt, few ministra-
tions of love. Here the activity of faith and love, but in~
L
146 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [il. 20.
sufficient zeal for the maintenance of godly discipline and
doctrine, a patience of error even where there was not a
participation in it. Each of these Churches was weak in
that wherein the other was strong.
But whom shall we understand by * that woman Jeze-
bel, tvhich calleth herself a prophetess,'' whom the Lord
proceeds presently to threaten with so terrible a doom ?
It may be well here to consider first the position which
the literal and historic Jezebel occupies in the history of
the Church, of the Old Testament. As Balaam, in the
earlier history of the children of Israel, was the author
of the great attempt to introduce heathenism with all its
train of attendant impurities into the heart of the Church
of God (Eev. ii. 14; Num. xxv.), so Jezebel in the later
period of that same history. She was a daughter of Eth-
baal, king of Sidon (1 Kin. xvi. 13). The identity of this
Ethbaal and EWtoftaXos, mentioned in a fragment of the
Tyrian Annals of Menander, preserved by Josephus {Con.
Apion. i. 1 8), is sufficiently made out, and is not, I believe,
called in question by any. Of this Ethbaal we there learn
that he was a priest of Astarte, and, by the murder of his
predecessor Pheles, made his own way to the throne and
kingdom. Jezebel, so swift to shed blood (1 Kin. xvii. 4 ;
xix. 2 ; xxi. 10), is a worthy offshoot of this evil stock.
Nor less does she attest herself the daughter of the priest
of Astarte. Hitherto the worship of the Calves had been
the whole extent of the departure of the Ten Tribes from
the Levitical institutions, — the true God worshipped still,
although under symbols which He had expressly forbidden ;
the law of Moses in the main allowed and kept, however
there might be a certain amount of sinful will-worship
mingling with and infecting all. But from the time of
Ahab's marriage with the daughter of Ethbaal the apo-
II. 20.] THYATIRA, REV II. 1 8-29. 147
stasy of Israel assumes altogether a different character ;
the guilt of it is of quite another and an infinitely deadlier
kind (1 Kin. xvi. 31 ; xxi. 25, 26). A fanatical promoter
of the Baal worship (1 Kin. xviii. 19), overbearing with
her stronger will the weak will of her despicable husband,
having made her own the substance of a power whereof
only the shadow remained to him (1 Kin. xxi. 7, 8), ani-
mated with the fiercest hatred against the prophets
of Jehovah, the last witnesses for Him in Israel, now that
the Levitical priesthood had been abolished there (1 Kin.
xxi. 31), she seeks utterly to exterminate these (1 Kin.
xviii. 13). She was probably herself, like her moral name-
sake here, a false prophetess ; a priestess of that foul en-
thusiasm. Many arguments make this probable at the
least. As much seems implied in the answer to Joram's
question, ' Is it peace ? ' which Jehu makes, ' What peace,
so long as the whoredoms of thy mother Jezebel, and her
'witchcrafts are so many' (2 Kin. ix. 22) ? So too, when
we keep in mind the essentially impure character of the
Phoenician idolatries which she introduced, — Ashtaroth
or Astarte was the Phoenician Aphrodite, — we have an
explanation of the ' whoredoms ' which Jehu further
lays to her charge, and which may thus have set a
hideous contradiction between her and her name, if indeed
that derivation which would make it etymologically to
signify The Chaste (our Agnes) is the true one (see Grese-
nius, Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon, p. 37). Nor is this
the only passage where these impurities are ascribed to
her. There is at Jeremiah iv. 30 an allusion, often over-
looked, but, so soon as attention is called to it, not to be
gainsaid, to 2 Kin. ix. 30 ; and there the lovers or para-
mours of Jezebel appear.
Such was the elder Jezebel ; the female Antichrist of
L 2
148 ETISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [il. 20.
the Old Testament. And the later, assuredly not a sect of
evil-workers personified, but some single wicked woman in
the Church of Thyatira (Jablonski, De Jezabele, Thyatire-
norum pseudoprophetissd, Opusc. vol. iii. p. 225), inherit-
ing from her this name of infamy in the Church of God,
would seem to have followed hard in the steps of her
Jewish prototype (for a like transfer of an evil name see
Isai. i. 10 ; Ezek. xvi. 3). Witsius : 'Facile ex hoc loco
concluditur fuisse Thyatirre principem aliquam atque
illustrem foeminam, simulacricolam, veneficam, meretricem,
geminam germanam antiquse illius Jezebelis, hoc tamen
instructiorem ad perniciem, quod ha?c palam sese hostem
ac persecutricem Ecclesise ostendebat, ilia autem videri
voluit prophetissa, raptus fatidicos mentiens, in Nicolaita-
rum ludo ad omnem nequitiam edocta.' Not only did she
give herself out for a prophetess, but in one sense, as I
take it, was such, — no mere teacher of perverse things,
employing her intellectual faculties in the service of
Satan, and not of God ; but claiming inspiration, and
probably possessing it, wielding spiritual powers, only they
were such as reached her from beneath, not such as de-
scended on her from above ; for as at this time miraculous
gifts of grace and power were at work in the Church, so
were also the devilish counterfeits of these. And thus,
by aid of these, she seduced the servants of Christ ' to
commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed to idols ; '
see ver. 14. To restrain ' servants ' here to those who
hold office in the Church is certainly a mistake. AoOXos
may very well have this narrower meaning at i. I ; but
that BovXoi includes the whole body of the faithful at vii.
3 ; xxii. 3, is evident. A comparison of this verse with
ver. 14-16 leaves no doubt that the Jezebelites, and
Balaamites, and Nicolaitans, with secondary differences
II. 21.] THYATIRA, REV. II. 1 8-29. 149
no doubt, were yet substantially the same ; — all libertine
sects, disclaiming the obligations of the moral law; all
starting with a denial that Jesus Christ was come in the
flesh, and that in the flesh therefore men were to be holy ;
all alike false spiritualists, whose highflying pretensions
did not hinder them from ending in the foulest fleshly
sins ; being themselves rather the means of entangling
men therein.
Ver. 21. ' And I gave her space to repent of her for-
nication ; and she repented not.' — The fact that punish-
ment does not at once overtake sinners is constantly
misunderstood by them as an evidence that it never will
overtake them (Eccl. viii. 1 1 ; Isai. xxvi. io ; Ps. xxvi. 1 1) ;
that God does not see, or, seeing, does not care to avenge.
Christ opens out here another aspect under which this de-
lay in the divine-revenges may be regarded. The very time
during which ungodly men are heaping up for themselves
greater wrath against the day of wrath, was a time lent
them for repentance (Kom. ii. 4 ; 2 Pet. iii. 9), if only they
would have understood the object and the meaning of it.
Ver. 22. ' Behold, I will cast her into a bed,1 and them
that commit adultery ivith her into great tribulation,
except they repent of their deeds.'' — These last words imply
that even now the day of grace was not expired for these
transgressors, however near at hand the close of it might be.
1 A curious testimony to the entire disappearance of Greek, and
of the power of appealing to Greek copies of Scripture, probably to
the well-nigh total absence of such in Western Europe to appeal to,
and the consequent exclusive dependence on the Vulgate, occurs here
in the Commentary of Richard of St. Victor, one of the most learned
men of perhaps the most learned monastic foundation in France. He
observes that some copies of the Latin here read ' lectum,' some ' luc-
tum ; ' discusses at length the several advantages and probabilities of
the two readings, without one word implying the possibility of settling
the question at once by a reference to the original.
150 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [il. 23.
' I will cast her into a bed ; ' there where she has sinned
(cf. Isai. lvii. 7, 8) shall she also be punished (cf. I Kin.
xxi. 19); the bed of sin shall be the bed of languishing,
of sickness, and of death ; cf. I Mace. i. 5 (sirsosv eiri rrjv
KolTTjv=i\ve fell sick') ; 1 Cor. xi. 30. The allusion which
Vitringa traces here to the bed on which Ahab cast him-
self down 'heavy and displeased' (1 Kin. xxi. 4) is in-
genious, but exceedingly far-fetched.
Ver. 23. ' And I will kill her children with death.'' —
If her lovers, those * that commit adultery with her ' (ver.
22), can only mean the chief furtherers and abettors of
those evil things (she may have seduced them to fleshly as
well as spiritual wickedness), ' her children ' must be rather
the less prominent, less forward members of the same
wicked confederacy, more the deceived while the others
were the deceivers (Isai. lvii. 3), who yet should be in-
volved with them in a common doom (Isai. ix. 16 ; xlvii. 9 ;
Ezek. xxiii. 47). The words ' with death ' must plainly
be accepted as emphatic ; some understand with pesti-
lence and plague (see Jer. xxi. 7), relying mainly on
Rev. vi. 8 ; where, however, ddvaros cannot be proved
to mean this; a reference to 2 Sam. xxiv. 13, 15 ; Ezek.
xiv. 19, 21 ; xxxiii. 27, LXX, would have been more to the
point. Hengstenberg detects an allusion here to the
death of the adulteress (Lev. xx. 10; Ezek. xvi. 38-41 ;
cf. John viii. 5) ; but this can scarcely be ; for it is the
' children ' of the adulteress, not the adulteress herself, who
are here threatened with death. Others find an allusion
to the two sweeping catastrophes which overtook the priests
and votaries of Baal at exactly that period of Jewish history
to which the mention of Jezebel here points (1 Kin. xviii.
40; 2 Kin. x. 25); — but more probably the words contain
nothing more than a general threat that their doom
II. 23.] THYATIPa, REV. II. 1 8-29. 151
should be a signal one, that they should 'die of grievous
deaths ' (Jer. xvi. 4), and not the common death of all
men, nor be visited after the visitation of all men
(Num. xvi. 29).
' And all the Churches shall know that I am He wh Ich
searcheth the reins and hearts.' — The judgment on this
brood of transgressors shall be so open and manifest, their
sin shall so plainly find them out, that, not the wicked, for
God's judgments are far above out of their sight, but ' all
the Churches,'' all who ponder these things and lay them
to heart, shall confess that He who moves up and down in
the midst of his Church, beholding the evil and the good,
is a God of knowledge (see ii. 2), who is not mocked ;
' which searcheth the reins and hearts ' (reus svvolais s^ju-
/3a.T£V(ov, as Olympiodorus explains it). ' The. reins '
are probably regarded here as the seat of the passions
(Delitzsch, Psychologie, p. 220), ' the heart9 of the affec-
tions; cf. Jer. xvii. 10; xx. 12; and Basil the Great,
Horn, in Ps. vii. § 6. But this searching of the hearts
and reins being, as it is, a prerogative of Deity (Mark
ii. 8), God only knowing the thoughts of men (o Kaphto-
yvGHTTvs ©f 6s, Acts xv. 8 ; i. 24 ; I Kin. viii. 39 ; 1 Chron.
xxix. 17 ; Ezek. xi. 5), it is plain that Christ, challenging
this power for Himself, is implicitly claiming to be God ;
even as others do the like for Him, when they make this
claim on his behalf (Heb. iv. 12, 13)-— 'JZpsvvav is used
in this same sense of searching, Rom. viii. 27, and
always expresses a careful investigation, a following up of
tracks or indications as far as they will lead, as the dog
the footprints of the chase, the miner the veins of the
metal (Gen. xxxi. 35 ; 1 Kin. xx. 6 ; Prov. xx. 27 ; 1 Cor.
ii. IO; 1 Pet. i. 11). Expressing, as the word does, this
laborious and even painful investigation, leading step by
152 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [il. 23.
step to its result, as every other discursive act, can only
avOpcoTToiraOws be ascribed to God ; to whom by absolute
and immediate intuition all hearts at all times lie open
and manifest ; who needs not to search out, and in this
way to find, that which He always knows. For spewoov
the Septuagint Translators prefer hra^wv (Ps. vii. 10 ;
1 Chron. xxix. 17 ; Ps. cxxxviii. 22; Jer. xvii. 10), which
rests on a different image,1 and does not occur in the New
Testament ; though i^srd^siv more than once (Matt. ii.
8 ; John xxi. 12).
' And I will give unto every one of you according to
your works.' — This promise, or this threat, for it may be
either, is one which nowadays we too commonly keep in
the background ; but it is one which we should press on
ourselves and on others with the same emphasis and iter-
ation wherewith Christ and his Word presses it upon us
all (Ps. lxii. 13 ; Matt. xvi. 27 ; Kom. ii. 6; 1 Pet. i. 17 ;
2 Cor. v. 10 ; Job xxxiv. 11 ; Eccles. xii. 14; Prov. xxiv.
1 2 ; Jer. xxxii. 1 9). It is one of the gravest mischiefs
which Koine has bequeathed to us, that in a reaction and
protest, itself absolutely necessary, against the false em-
phasis which she puts on works, unduly thrusting them in
to share with Christ's merits in our justification, we often
shrink from placing upon them the true ; being as they
are, to speak with St. Bernard, the ' via regni,' however
little they may be the ' causa regnandi ; ' though here too
it must never be forgotten that it is only the good tree
which brings forth good fruit ; and that no tree is good
until Christ has made it good.
1 Basil the Great: '"Eracrpos icvpiais iaTiv 7] /xrra naoSiV fiacravav
Trpoo-ayofxevr] epevva irapa tu>v KptTcov rois e^era^opevois, iva 01 KpvwTovres
Trap' eavTots ra em^rjTovpeva, tj] dvdyKrj roiv irovatv els to epcpavis Kara-
GTncruxri. to XavOdvov.
II. 24«] THYATIKA, EEV. II. 1 8-29. 153
Ver. 24. ' But unto you I say, and unto the rest in
Thyatira, as many as have not this doctrine, and which
have not known the depths of Satan, as they speak; I will
put upon you none other burden.'1 — Leave out the kcu
with which the second clause in the sentence begins, and
read, ' But unto you I say, the rest in Thyatira, &c.'
The Gnostics, starting probably from I Cor. ii. 10, were
ever boasting their acquaintance with mysteries, the deep
things of God ; could speak much about the /3v66s, ' vere
csecutientes, qui profunda Bythi adinvenisse se dicunt '
(Irenseus ; cf. Tertullian, Adv. Valentin. § i). A question
is often here raised, whether these evil-workers spoke of
' depths of Satan ; ' or only of ' depths,'' while ' of Satan '
is a further characteristic of these ' depths,' added by the
Lord Himself ; who thus intimates with a severe irony
what was the real character of those ' depAhs ' into which
they professed themselves to have entered, and into which
they sought to guide others. In this last way the words
are generally understood, the Lord declaring what, in his
all-seeing eye, was the true nature of the /ji£ya\opp7]/j,ocrvvai
(such Ignatius, Ep. ad Ephes. 10, calls them), the 'great
swelling words of vanity ' which these Gnostics vented ;
promising Liberty to others, while they were themselves
servants of corruption. I should be disposed, however, to
think with Hengstenberg, that it was they themselves who
talked of ' depths of Satan,' — the position of ms Xsyovat
seems to imply as much, — that in that fearful sophistry
wherein they were such adepts, and whereby they sought
to make a religion of every corrupt inclination of the
natural mind, they talked much of ' depths of Satan,' which
it was expedient for them to fathom. They taught, as we
know, that it was a small thing for a man to despise plea-
sure and to show himself superior to it, while at the same
154 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [il. 24.
time he fled from it. The true, the glorious victory was,
to remain superior to it even while tasting it to the full ;
to give the body to all the lusts of the flesh, and yet with
all this to maintain the spirit in a region of its own, un-
injured by them ; and thus, as it were, to fight against
pleasure with the arms of pleasure itself ; to mock and
defy Satan even in his own kingdom and domain. We
have an anticipation of this sophistry of sin, with its
flatteries at once of the pride and corruption of the human
heart, in the well-known mot of Aristippus, the Cyrenaic
philosopher, who being upbraided on the score of his
relations with a Corinthian courtesan, defended himself
with the reply, difficult adequately to render in English,
"E^co Aatha, ov/c syo^ai vir avrr\s ( Clement of Alexandria,
Strom, ii. 20 ; Diogenes Laertius, ii. 8. 75). Here, how-
ever, were but the germs of that which in some of the
Gnostics appears fully blown.
' For you,' says the Lord, ' who have not gone to this
satanic school, who have been content with the simple
knowledge of the good, and not thought it needful to
know the evil as well, not good and evil, but only good,
I will put upon you none other burden.' If it be asked,
' none other burden ' than what ? — the answer no doubt
is, none other than a continued abstinence from, and
protest against, these abominations. It was the master-
stroke of the antinomian Gnostics to exaggerate, to distort,
to misapply, all which St. Paul had spoken about the
freedom of the Christian man from the law. They were
the ultra-Paulines, who caricatured his doctrine, till of
God's truth they had made a devil's lie. St. Paul had
said of the law that it was not the ground of the Christian
man's justification (Eomans, Galatians), nor yet the source
of his holiness (Colossians) : they made him to say that
II. 2 5-] THYATIRA, REV. II. 1 8-29. 155
it was not the rule of his life ; as though the Apostle
had rejected it altogether as a burden no longer to be
borne by the redeemed. The Lord takes up this word
' burden ; ' — ' I do lay on you a burden, but it is a burden
which it is your blessedness to bear, and over and above
which I will impose no other.' Compare Matt. xi. 30,
where, however, (popriov, not ftdpos, stands in the original,
and Acts xv. 28, 29, where fidpos occurs in this very sense
of abstinence from idol-meats and fornication ; and where
exactly in the same sense, and almost in the same words,
the Apostles declare that they will lay on the faithful of
the Gentiles ' no greater burden than these necessary
things.' I cannot but think that Christ's words here have
direct reference to that solemn decree of the Church.
Ver. 25. ' But that which ye have already hold fast
till 1 come.'' — It is on this condition that He will impose
on them no additional burden. What they have of sound
doctrine, of holy living, this they must hold fast, must so
grasp it that none shall wrest it from them, till the day
when the Lord shall come, and bring this long and painful
struggle for the maintenance of his truth to an end. Ever
and ever in Scripture, not the day of death, but the day
of the Lord Jesus, is put as the term of all conflict.
Ver. 26. ' And he that overcometh, and ke&peth my
works tinto the end, to him will I give poiver over the
nations.' — On the nominative absolute here (o vikwv . . .
&(o<T(o avT(p) and at iii. 12, 21, see Winer, Gramm. § 28. 3 ;
and for other examples of the same, Ps. x. 4; Hos. xii.
7 ; Matt. x. 32 ; Acts vii. 40. By ' my ivorks ' we must
understand ' works which I have commanded, in which I
find pleasure, which are the fruits of my Spirit ; ' cf. John
vi. 28, where ' the works of God ' are to be understood in
the 'same sense as * godly works.' Here again that which
156 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [il. 2J.
is praised, that which will be crowned, is the keeping of
these his works ' unto the end ; ' for Christ, the great
S7rtardrr]9 in the games, of which the Father is the
aycovodsTT)?, and, still to keep the language of Tertullian
(ad Mart. 3), the Holy Grhost the ^vardpxv^ eternal life
the fipafisiov, promises here this reward, not to him who
enters the lists and endures for a time, but to him who,
having begun well, continues striving lawfully to the last.
' To him will I give 'power over the nations.'' The royal-
ties of Christ shall by reflection and communication be
the royalties also of his Church. They shall reign ; but
only because Christ reigns, and because He is pleased to
share his dignity with them (iii. 21 ; Eom. v. 17 ; 2 Tim.
ii. 12). When we ask ourselves in what sense, at what
time, and in what form this ' power over the nations '
shall be the prerogative of the Church, we must find our
answer in such passages as Rev. xx. 4 ; xxii. 5 ; I Cor. vi. 2 ;
Dan. vii. 22, 27 ; Ps. cxlix. 6-9 ; and above all Matt. xix.
28; cf. also Wisd. iii. 8; Ecclus. iv. 15. For '-power''
the R. V. has substituted ' authority J which is an improve-
ment. There is very commonly a moral element im-
plied in s^ovala (Matt. xxi. 23 ; Mark i. 22 ; John xvii.
2), which in hvvafiis would be looked for in vain.
Ver. 27. ' And he shall rule them with a rod of iron;
as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers.'' —
As this is a dignity which is originally Christ's (Ps. ii. 9 ;
ex. 2 ; Rev. xii. 5 ; xix. 1 5 ), and only by Him made over
to his servants, it is needful first to inquire what it means
in respect of Him ; and we may then understand what it
means in respect of them. The passage in the second
Psalm is no doubt that on which the three in this Book
ultimately rest. It is there, ' Thou shalt break them with
a rod of iron ; ' but this Book of Revelation is in agree-
II. 27.] THTATIRA, REV. II. 1 8-29. 157
ment with the Septuagint, ' Thou shalt rule \jroiiJiavsls~\
them with a rod of iron.' The Hebrew word for ' Thou
shalt break,'' and that for ' Thou shalt rule,' only differ -in
their vowels ; their consonants are identical ; at the same
time the parallelism of the latter half of the verse, ' Thou
shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel,' leaves
no doubt that ' Thou shalt break ' was the intention of the
Psalmist. Shall we therefore conclude not merely that
the Septuagint Translators mistook, which happens too
frequently to be a matter to us of any serious wonder, but
that the Lord set his seal to their error? By no means.
He indeed accepts the pregnant and significant variation
which they, intentionally or unintentionally, drew out of
the language before them ; and which was justified by the
root common to both words ; and instead of the mere
unmingled judgment which lay in the passage as it origin-
ally stood in that Psalm, He expresses by it now judgment
mingled with mercy, judgment behind which purposes of
grace are concealed, and only waiting their due time to
appear. Such a TraiSsvTi/ci) svspysia, as Theodoret terms
it, must be recognized in the iroi\xaivztv ; which our ' Thou
shalt rule,'' and the Latin * reges,' only imperfectly give
back ; as, in regard of the Latin, Hilary (in Ps. ii.) urged
long ago : ' Eeges eos in virga ferrea ; quanquam ipsum
reges non tyrannicum neque injustum sit, sed ex aequitatis
ac moderationis arbitrio regimen rationale demonstret,
tamen molliorem adhuc regentis affectum proprietas
Graeca significat. Quod enim nobiscum est, reges eos,
cum illis est Troifxavsls avrovs, id est, pastoraliter reges,
regendi scilicet eos curam affectu pastoris habiturus.'
For a still tenderer use of iroiaaivuv see John xxi. 16 ;
Acts xx. 28. No doubt the words do contain a threat for
the nations; but it is a threat of love (cf. 1 Cor. iv. 21).
158 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [il. 2"].
Christ shall rule them with a sceptre of iron, so to make
them capable of being ruled with a sceptre of gold ;
severity first, that grace may come after ; they are broken
in pieces, that they may know themselves to be but men ;
that, their fierceness and pride being brought down, they
may accept the yoke of Christ (Ps. lxxxiii. 16). And
indeed how often the great tribulations of a people have
been the irpoTraiZsia, the preparatory discipline, stern but
indispensable, whereby the Son of Grod has broken their
pride, and made them capable of receiving his gospel,
which, but for these, they would in their presumption and
self-confidence have rejected to the end. Thus what a
ruling with a rod of iron was the enforced conversion of
the Saxons by Charlemagne ; what a bruising and breaking
of their pride and self-confidence, while yet it was the
beginning for them of a higher life, which except for this
they might have never known.
Our Translators have only rendered pdftSos by ' sceptre '
on a single occasion in the New Testament (Heb. i. 8).
It were to be wished they had done so here, and at xii. 5 ;
xix. 15. The word in the second Psalm B3£> has this
meaning ; cf. Ps. xliv. 8, where in like manner it occurs ;
and everything else speaking of royalty here, this should
do the same. It may be urged, indeed, that royal sceptres
are not usually of iron, but of wood overgilded, or of silver,
or of gold. This may be quite true, but only makes more
striking the exception in the present instance. 'He
shall rule them with a sceptre of iron,'' which, harder and
stronger than any other, shall dash them who oppose
themselves to it in pieces like a potter's vessel ; this image
implying the ease with which all resistance shall be over-
come, the utter destruction which shall overtake all them
who attempt it (Jer. xix. 11; Isai. xxx. 14). Ewald :
II. 28.] THTATIBA, REV. II. 1 8-29. 159
' Imago regis hostes suos facillima opera conterentis et
dispergentis.'
' Even as I received of my Father.'' — There was one who
offered to inaugurate Him at once in the possession of all
the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them ; and
the Lord had repelled him and his offer with indignation
(Luke iv. 5-8), not because these were not his just expec-
tation and his due inheritance ; but because He would re-
ceive them at no other hands than his Father's. And now
we find that He has received them at these hands, and
they are his ; his to impart to his servants ; and that
which was a lying boast on the lips of the usurper, namely,
that he could give them to whom he would, is a truth on
the lips of the rightful Lord. Even while upon earth He
could say to his own, in prophetic anticipation of his
completed work (and the words constitute a very remark-
able parallel to these), ' I appoint unto you a kingdom, as
my Father hath appointed unto Me ' (Luke xxii. 29;.
Eichard of St. Victor : ' Magna promissio, magnum donum :
hoc promittit, hoc tribuit, quod Ipse accepit.'
Ver. 28. '■And I will give him the morning star.' —
Cf. xxii. 16, where the Lord Himself is ' the bright and
morning star ' (6 da-Ttjp 6 Xapbirpbs 6 irpwlvos) ; and the
glorious hymn in the Ranw of Aristophanes (343) where
Dionysus is described as vvKrspov rsXsrrjs (paxrcpopof
ciGTrjp. "Whether He is meant by ' the day-star ' (cpcoa-
cpopos) of 2 Pet. i. 19, may be a question. This star, as
light-bringer, herald and harbinger of day, goes by many
names ; it is do-rrjp scodivos (Ecclus. 1. 6), 0 scoacpopos 6
Trpw'l avarsWcov (Isai. xiv. 12, ' Lucifer, son of the morn-
ing,' A. V.) ; the beauty and transcendant brightness of it
being continually celebrated by poets, as by Homer (II.
Xxii. 3I7: SGTTSpOS, OS KaXXlCTTOS £V OVpdVOO %<TT(lTai
160 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [il. 29.
acrrrjp) ; by Virgil {[Mn. viii. 389) ; by Ovid (Trist. i. 3.
71 : * cselo nitidissimus alto ') ; and by Milton {Par. Lost,
iv. 605 :
' Hesperus, that led
The starry host, rode brightest').
Thus does He who is ' fairer than the children of men '
claim all that is fairest and loveliest in creation as the faint
shadow and image of his perfections. A comparison with
that other passage in this Book referred to already (xxii.
16) conclusively proves that when Christ promises that
He will give to his faithful ones the morning star, He
promises that He will give to them Himself, that He will
impart to them his own glory and a share in his own royal
dominion (cf. iii. 21); for the star, as there has been
already occasion to observe, is evermore the symbol of
royalty (Matt. ii. 2), being therefore linked with the
sceptre (Num. xxiv. 17). All the glory of the world shall
end in being the glory of the Church, if only this abide
faithful to its Lord. Witsius very beautifully, though
placing his emphasis not precisely as I have done : ' Stella?
matutina? datio significat, I. communionem arctiorem cum
Christo, penes quem fons lucis est (Ps. xxxvi. 10), et qui se
ipsum stellam illam matutinam et splendidam nuncupat
(Eev. xxii. 16). II. Quod exinde consequitur lucis et
cognitionis spiritualis incrementum, immo consummatio-
nem sapientise caelestis (cf. 2 Pet. i. 19). III. Gaudium
gloriosum et ineffabile, quod frequenter luci comparatur
(Esth. viii. 16 ; Job xxx. 26; Ps. xcvii. n), et imprimis luci
matutinas, quse quum caliginosae noctis horrori proxime
succedat, omnium est .gratissima (Job ii. 17 ; 2 Sam. xxiii.
4 ; Jes. viii. 20).'
Ver. 29. ' He that hath an ear, let him hear what the
Spirit saith unto the Churches.'' — Compare ii. 7.
V.
EPISTLE TO THE CHUECH OF SAEDIS.
Eev. iii. 1-6.
Ver. i. ' And unto the Angel of the Church in Sard is
write.'' — Sardis. now Sart, was situated on the side of
Mount Tmolus, upon the river Pactolus. The ancient
capital of Lydia (' Crcesi regia Sardis,' Horace, Ep. i. 1 1. 2),
it maintained a certain portion of its old dignity and
splendour in the time of the Persians, being the residence
of the Satrap, and had not wholly lost it in the Koman
period. For the things in which the Sardians gloried the
most, see Tacitus, Annal. iv. 55. Melito, whose name
we hear seldom now, but the titles of whose works, one. of
these being a Commentary on the Apocalypse, inspire us
with a lively regret for their almost entire loss, was bishop
of Sardis in the latter half of the second century, being
the only illustrious name connected with this Church
(Routh, Reliquiae Sacrce, vol. i. p. 109 sqq. ; Neander,
Kirch. Gesch. i. 3, p. 1140; Theol. Stud, und Krit. 1838,
p. 54; Renan, Marc-AurUe, pp. 1 78-1 91). Renan only
needed a little more material to work on to have made a
most interesting sketch of Melito's life and work ; but his
materials are too scanty, and even his ingenuity fails him
here.
M
162 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [ill. I.
' These tilings saith He that hath the seven Spirits of
God, and the seven stars' — There has been already occa-
sion (i. 4) to speak of ' the seven Spirits of Godf and to
claim for these that they in this complex can set forth no
other than the one Holy Spirit, the third Person of the
ever-blessed Trinity, in his sevenfold operation. Augustine
(In Juan. Tract. 122) speaks confidently on this mat-
ter : ' Quid in Apocalypsi, nonne septem spiritus Dei di-
cuntur, cum sit unus atque idem Spiritus, dividens propria
unicuique prout vult? Sed operatio septenaria unius Spi-
ritus sic appellate, est ab eodem Spiritu, qui scribenti ad-
fiiit, ut septem spiritus dicerentur.' It only remains to
consider the relation in which Christ, declaring that it
is He " that hath the seven Spirits of God,'' claims to stand
to these seven. How entirely He 4 hath ' them, by how
intimate a right they are his, may best be understood by
the comparison of other words, presently occurring in this
same Book : ' I beheld a Lamb as it had been slain, hav-
ing seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits
of God sent forth into all the earth ' (v. 6 ; cf. Zech. iii. 9 ;
iv. 10). It needs hardly to be observed how important a
witness this verse, when the right interpretation of ' the
seven Spirits' has been seized, bears to the faith of the
Western Church on that great point upon which it is at
issue with the Eastern, in respect, namely, of the proces-
sion of the Holy Ghost. He is indeed the Spirit of the
Father and the Son. The Son ' hath the seven Spirits,''
or the Spirit ; not because He has received ; for though it
is quite true that in the days of his flesh He did receive
(Mart. iii. 16 ; John iii. 34; Heb. i. 9), yet now it is the
Son of God, a giver therefore, and not a receiver, who is
speaking ; who ' hath ' the Spirit ; ' hath ' to the end that
He may impart it. If, too, the Spirit be admitted to be
III. I.J SARDIS, KEV. III. 1-6. 163
God, then the Son, who ' hath ' the Spirit, must be Grod
likewise ; as is well argued, though not with reference to
this particular verse, by Augustine (De Trin. xv. 26) :
' Quomodo Deus non est, qui dat Spiritum Sanctum ?
Immo quantus Deus est, qui dat Deum ? ' There is a
special fitness in the assumption of this style by the Lord
in his address to the Angel of the Church of Sardis. To
him and to his people, sunken in spiritual deadness and
torpor, the lamp of faith waning and almost extinguished
in their hearts, the Lord presents Himself as having the
fulness of all spiritual gifts ; able therefore to revive, able
to recover, able to bring back from the very gates of spi-
ritual death those who would employ the little last re-
maining strength which they still retained, in calling, even
when thus in extremis, upon Him.
In the words which follow, ' and the seven stars,'
is the only approach to a repetition in the titles of the
Lord throughout all the Epistles. He has already pro-
claimed Himself as ' He that holdeth the seven stars in his
right hand ' (ii. 1), and now He is ' He that hath the seven
stars.' But the repetition is only apparent. * The seven
stay's ' are brought into entirely different combinations
there and here. There * He that holdeth the seven stars '
is set forth as the same ' ivho walketh in the midst of the
seven golden candlesticks ; ' here ' He that hath the seven
Spirits of God ' hath also ' the seven stars' But since
' the stars are the Angels of the seven Churches ' (i. 20),
we must see in this combination a hint of the relation be-
tween Christ, as the giver of the Holy Spirit, and as the
author of a ministry of living men in his Church ; this
ministry of theirs resting wholly on these gifts, even as the
connexion between the two is often brought out in the
New Testament. The locus classicus on this matter is
M 2
164 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [ill. I.
Ephes. iv. 7-12 ; but see further John xx. 22, 23 ; Acts i.
8 ; xx. 28. His are the golden urns from which these
' stars,'' if they would at all shine, must continually draw
their light. They need not fear to be left destitute of his
manifold gifts, for He hath the Holy Spirit in all his
sevenfold operations, wherewith evermore to furnish them
to the full. With a deep insight into this truth the
Church orders that hymn, ' Come, Holy Ghost, our souls
inspire,' to be sung at the ordination of her ministers.
Cocceius : ' Per hanc descriptionem Christus vult se nosci
caput Ecclesise, suppeditatorem Spiritus Sancti, et datorem
Ministrorum.'
' / knoiv thy ivorhs, that thou hast a name that thou
livest, and art dead.'' — A passage which at once suggests
itself as parallel to this, is I Tim. v. 6, where St. Paul, of
a woman living in pleasure, says, ^axra rsdvrjics : and com-
pare, in the same sense, Matt. viii. 22 ; Luke xv. 24 ;
Rom. vi. 13 ; Ephes. ii. I, 5 ; Heb. vi. 1 ; ix. 14. Bengel
suggests, and earlier commentators had anticipated the
suggestion, that the name of this Angel may have con-
tained some assertion of life ; which stood in lamentable
contradiction with the realities of death which the Lord
beheld in him ; a name therefore which in his case was
not the utterance of a truth, but a lie ; no nomen et omen,
but the reverse ; the name affirming and implying that he
was alive, while in truth he was dead ; Tiwcny.os would be
such a name in Greek, Vitalis in Latin. Hengstenberg
considers the suggestion not improbable ; Marckius brands
it as ' inanissima conjectura ; ' even as it appears to me
exceedingly improbable and far-fetched. The use of
' name ' as equivalent to fame, reputation, character, is as
common in Greek as in English. The fact that Sardis
should have had this name and fame of life is very start-
III. 2.] SARDIS, REV. III. 1-6. 165
ling, and may well summon each and all to an earnest
heart-searching. There would be nothing nearly so start-
ling, if Sardis had been counted by the Churches round
about as a Church fallen into lethargy and hastening to
decay and death. But there is no appearance of the kind.
Laodicea, we know, deceived herself (iii. 17), but nothing
implies that she deceived others ; counted herself rich,
when she was most poor ; but there is no hint to make
us think that others counted her rich as well ; but Sardis
had a name that she lived, was well spoken of, regarded,
we may well believe, as a model Church, can therefore have
been by no means wanting in the outer manifestations of
spiritual life ; while yet all these shows of life did but con-
ceal the realities of death ; so He, before whose eyes of
fire no falsehood can stand, too surely saw.
Ver. 2. * Be ivatchful, and strengthen the things which
remain, that are ready to dieJ — Translate rather, ' Become
watchful,'' or, if this be not too familiar, ' wake up ' (jlvov
yprjyopwv). The passages are many in which activity
or vigilance of spirit is set forth under this same image,
often by this very word (Matt. xxiv. 42, 43 ; xxv. 1 3 ;
xxvi. 41 ; Mark xiii. 37; Acts xx. 31 ; 1 Cor. xv. 34;
xvi. 13; 1 Thess. v. 6 ; 1 Pet. v. 8; Rev. xvi. 15). Not a
few of our commentators are agreed that to, \otira here
should be rendered not ' the things ivhich remain ' (' qua?
hue usque tibi mansere virtutes,' Ewald) ; but rather, ' those
ivhich remain,'' or * the rest ' ( = rous Xonrovs, or tovs tcara-
\olttovs, Jer. xxiii. 3), as many as are not yet dead, how-
ever they may be now at the point of death. We gather
from these words that, with few exceptions, the entire
Sardian Church shared in this deadness of its chief pastor ;
while he, in seeking to revive their life, to chafe their
dead limbs, would best revive and recover the warmth of his
166 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [ill. 2.
own (Ps. K. 1 3). Their present abject and fallen condition
is excellently expressed by the use of the neuter (cf. 1 Cor.
i. 27 ; Ezek. xxxiv. 4 ; Zech. xi. 9) ; nor indeed need the
use of it surprise us, even without the sufficient explanation
which this supplies. It is not here only that <jrqpl%eiv is
employed in this sense of establishing, confirming in the
grace of God (see Luke xxii. 32 ; Kom. i. 1 1 ; 2 Thess. iii.
3 ; 1 Pet. v. 10); fisficuovv too often occurs in the same
sense (1 Cor. i. 8 ; 2 Cor. i. 21 ; Col. ii. 7); Os/xsXlovu
(Eph. iii. 17; Col. i. 23 ; 1 Pet. v. 10), and p^ovv
(Ephes. iii. 18 ; Col. ii. 7) as well. This command to
the Sardian Angel implies that the vs/cpbs el of ver. 1
must not be taken in all its force. The dead can bury
their dead, but this is all which such can do ; they must
be themselves alive, who are bidden to impart a savour of
life to others. The fire of grace may burn very low in
their hearts ; but it cannot be quite extinguished ; for
how in that case could they kindle any flame in the
hearts of others ?
' For I have not found thy ivories 'perfect before God? —
The word here employed is not that which we commonly
render * perfect ; ' not rsXsia, but irsirX^pwfxiva ; so that
the Lord contemplates the works prepared and appointed
in the providence of God for the faithful man to do as a
definite sphere (Ephes. ii. 10), which it was his duty and
his calling to have fulfilled or filled to the full, — the same
image habitually underlying the uses of irXrjpovv and 7rX?;-
povadai (Matt. iii. 15 ; Eom. xiii. 8). This sphere of ap-
pointed duties the Sardian Angel had not fulfilled ; not, at
least, ' before God ; ' for on these last words the emphasis
must be laid. Before himself and fellow men his works
may very likely have been 'perfect;' indeed, we are ex-
pressly told that he had ' a name to live ' (ver. 1 ) ; for we
III. 2.] SARDIS, REV. III. 1-6. 167
all very easily satisfy ourselves concerning our own works,
neither is it very difficult to satisfy the world concerning
them. But to have our works ' perfect before God,'' to
fill up the measure of those that He has ordained, so to
have them irBifKrjpwiJi.iva, that is quite a different and a
far harder thing. Very striking and very searching words
on this matter are those of one whose own devotion to his
work gave him a right to speak — Juan d'Avila, the apostle
of Andalusia : ' Tot tantaaque sunt pastorum obligationes,
ut qui vel tertiam earum partem reipsa impleret, sanctus
ab hominibus haberetur ; cum tarn en eo solo contentus,
gehennam non esset evasurus ; ' and few, who have read,
will forget some words of Cecil very nearly to the same
effect — for holy men have in their holiness a marvellous
bond of union, when everything else seems to separate
them, — that a minister of Christ is very often in highest
honour with men for the performance of one half of his
work, while Grod is regarding him with displeasure for the
neglect of the other half.
It is a very instructive fact, that everywhere else, in
the Epistles to all the Churches save only to this and to
Laodicea, there is mention of some burden to be borne, of
a conflict either with foes within the Church or without,
or with both. Only in these two nothing of the kind
occurs. The exceptions are very significant. There is no
need to assume that the Church at Sardis had openly
coalesced and joined hands with the heathen world ; this
would in those days have been impossible ; nor yet that it
had renounced the appearance of opposition to the world.
But the two tacitly understood one another. This Church
had nothing of the spirit of the Two Witnesses, of whom we
read that they ' tormented them that dwelt on the earth '
(Rev. xi. io), tormented them, that is, by their witness
168 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [ill. 3.
for a God of truth and holiness and love, whom the dwel-
lers on the earth were determined not to know. There
was nothing in it to provoke from the heathen, in the
midst of whom it sojourned, any such words as those which
the author of the Wisdom of Solomon puts into the mouth
of the ungodly men (ii. 12-16). The world could endure
it, because it too was a world. On the not less significant
absence of all heretical perversions of the truth in these
Churches, there will be something to say when we have
reached the Epistle to Laodicea.
Ver. 3. ' Remember therefore how thou hast received
cud heard, and holdfast, a. ad, repent.'' — This c hoiv ' is by
some interpreters referred to the manner of their former
receiving, and by some to the 'matter which they formerly
received and heard. Now if the character of the charge
which the Lord is making against Sardis were that of
holding, or even tolerating, any erroneous doctrine, con-
trary to * the faith once delivered to the saints,' I should
certainly side with them who referred this ' how ' to the
matter, to the form of sound words which they had ac-
cepted at the first, and to which Christ would recall them
now ; I should see in these words a parallel to such pas-
sages as Col. ii. 6 ; 1 Tim. vi. 20; 2 Tim. i. 14. But the
charge against Sardis is not a perverse holding of untruth,
but a heartless holding of the truth ; and therefore I can-
not but think that the Lord is graciously reminding her of
the heartiness, the zeal, the love with which she received
this truth at the first. Then, no doubt, there was great
joy in that city (Acts viii. 8) ; but now all was changed ;
compare St. Paul's words, I Thess. i. 5-10, where, however,
there is no such painful comparison to draw between the
present and the past of his Thessalonian converts ; also
the same Apostle to the Galatians (iv. 13-15), a completer
III. 3.] SARDIS, REV. III. 1-6. 169
parallel to the words before us, seems that St. Paul is con-
trasting there their present disaffection and coldness of
heart toward him and the Gospel of the grace of God
which he brought, with the zeal and warmth and love
wherewith they first received these glad tidings at his
lips, the ' hotv ' of their present holding with the ' how '
of their past receiving. But this ' how thou hast re-
ceived'' refers to something more, besides their joyful
loving acceptance of the truth in times past. They are
bidden, no doubt, in these words to remember as well
' hoiu ' that truth itself came, that they might receive it ;
with what demonstration of the Spirit and of power from
the lips of" those ambassadors of Christ, whoever they may
have been, who first brought it to Sardis ; how holily, how
unblamably these went in and out among them. And
remembering all this, let them not guiltily suffer that to
go, which came so commended to them, which was so
joyfully embraced by them, but rather hold it with a firm
grasp. ' Prize now ' — this is what the warning word of a
gracious Lord would say — ' that which thou didst once
prize at so high a rate, which came to thee so evidently as
a gift from God, accompanied with the Holy Ghost from
heaven ; and repent thee of all the coldness and heartless-
ness wherewith thou hast come to regard it' (2 Pet. i. 9).
' If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee
as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come
upon thee.7 — Augustine has pointedly said, ' Latet ultimus
dies, ut observetur omnis dies.' But should this Angel
refuse thus to observe and watch, the Lord takes up against
him and repeats here his own words, twice spoken, with
slight variations, in the days of his ministry on earth
(Matt. xxiv. 42, 43 ; Luke xii. 39, 40) ; words which must
have profoundly impressed themselves on those who heard
] 70 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHDKCHES IN ASIA. [ill. 4.
them, and 011 the early Church in general, as is evidenced
from the frequent reference to them in other parts of the
New Testament ; as by St. Paul (1 Thess. v. 2, 4) ; by St.
Peter (2 Ep. iii. 10) ; and by St. John (Kev. xvi. 15). It is
the stealthiness of Christ's advent, and thus his coming
upon the secure sinner when least He is looked for, which
is the point of the comparison, not the violent taking away
of the worldling's goods. In that case, He would be the
~kr](TTr)$ rather than the kK.ettttjs^ the robber, and not the
thief which here He is (cf. Matt. xxiv. 36-51 ; xxv. 13).
That grand ancient proverb, which ascribed to the aveng-
ing deities feet shod with wool, ' Dii laneos habent pedes,'
awfully expressed the sense which the heathen had of this
noiseless approach of the divine judgments, of Justice
(ottlgOottovs Aikt), as one called her of old), oftentimes
so near at the very moment when thought so remote.
So too in that sublime fragment of some Greek tragic
poet, the very turn of the phrase in the conclusion re-
minds one of these words of Christ :
donels ra Qtav <tv tjvvera viKtjcrai nore,
Kcu Trjv AiKrjv ttov fidicfj ancoKiaaai fiporav ;
tj 8' fyyvs eerriv, ov% opwpevq 8 opa,
ov xpr] Ko\d£eiv t, oidev dXX' ovk oiaOa <xv
OTTurav a<pvw poXovaa StoXe'cr?; kcikovs.
Ver. 4. ' Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which
have not defiled their garments.'' — 'But' (aWa), with
which this verse begins, and about whose right to a place in
the text there is not a question, has been carelessly omitted
here by our Authorized translators. ' Names ' cannot here
be slightingly used, any more than at Acts i. 1 5 ; cf. Rev.
xi. 13 ; Num. i. 2, 18, 20; iii. 40, 43 ; xxvi. 53 ; it must
be simply equivalent to persons ; — or there may be a tacit
reference to ver. 1 . The Angel of Sardis had a ' name '
III. 4.] SARDIS, REV. III. 1-6. 171
that he lived, and was dead ; but there were some there,
however few, whose ' names ' were more than names ; who
had not merely the form of godliness (2 Tim. iii. 5 ;
fxopcfxoa-is there = ovofia here), but the power. It is very
beautiful to observe the gracious manner in which the
Lord recognizes and sets his seal of allowance to the good
which anywhere He finds. Abraham said, ' to slay the
righteous with the wicked, that be far from Thee ' (Gen.
xviii. 25) ; but it is far from Him no less even to seem to
include the righteous and the wicked in a common blame.
He, the same who delivered Noah, a preacher of righteous-
ness, from the destruction of the old world, who drew just
Lot out of Sodom, who could single out from the whole
wicked family of Jeroboam, and take from the evil to come,
Abijah, ' because in him there was found some good thing
toward the Lord God of Israel ' ( 1 Kin. xiv. 1 3), beholds the
few faithful in Sardis that had not defiled their garments,
will not suffer them to suppose that they are overlooked
by Him, or that his condemnation was intended to include
them. The ' garments ' which these are thus declared not
to have ' defiled,'' are not to be identified with the ' white
raiment ' of the next verse, nor with the ' white ' in the
next clause of this. The ' white raiment ' there is the
garment of glory, — this the garment of grace ; that in-
capable of receiving a stain, being part of an inheritance
which in all its parts is afxlavros ( I Pet. i. 4) ; this one
which ctttiXol (Ephes. v. 27 ; Jam. iii. 6), /xida/xara (2 Pet.
ii. 20), fioXva-fioL (2 Cor. vii. 1), can only too easily deform ;
that keeping itself, for nothing that defileth enters where
it is worn (Rev. xxi. 27) ; this needing to be kept above
all keeping (Rev. xvi. 15), if the glory and brightness are
not quite to depart from it. This, itself a wedding gar-
ment (Matt. xxii. 11, 12), but not necessarily identical with
172 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [ill. 4.
' the fine linen, clean and white, the righteousness of saints'
(Rev. xix. 8), is put on at our entrance by baptism into
the kingdom of grace ; that at our entrance by the resur-
rection, if not before, into the kingdom of glory.
There were those at Sardis, a little remnant, who had
thus kept their garments ; or, according to his testimony
' who seeth in secret,' had ' not defiled ' them. Absolutely,
and in the highest sense, no one has thus kept his gar-
ments, save only He who received more than a garment
of grace at baptism ; having been sanctified in his mother's
womb, and thus a ' holy thing' (Luke i. 35), not from his
birth only, but from his conception. Yet, in a secondary
sense, and as compared with too many, there are those
who have not defiled these garments ; or, in the equivalent
language of St. James, ' kept themselves unspotted from
the world ' (i. 27). These are they who, if they do con-
tract any defilement upon these, yet suffer it not to harden
or become ingrained in their garments ; but go at once to
the fountain open for all uncleanness, wash those gar-
ments and make them white again in the blood of the
Lamb (Rev. vii. 14). — MoXvvslv differs from /j,calvsiv, as
' inquinare ' from ' maculare ' (see my Synonyms of the
New Testament, §31), being not so much to stain with
colour as to besmear or besmirch with filth (Cant. v. 3 ;
Gren. xxxvii. 30). Hengstenberg is convinced we are to
find in this ^taivuv (= ' sordidare '), a covert allusion to
the name of this city, Sardis or Sardes, which is so near
to sordes \ Christ saying that, with the few exceptions
which He has made, Sardes is become sordes ('Sardes ist
sordes geworden '). But a Latin pun, and such a wretched
one, in the Apocalypse ! A Hebrew, or even a Greek, play
on words, is quite conceivable there. Such an one lies
in the name ' Nicolaitans,' given to the libertines of the
III. 4.] SARDIS, REV. III. 1-6. 173
apostolic period (see ii. 6). A deep sense of the signifi-
cance of words and names will often find its utterance in
such ; but a Latin pun, and that with no slightest hint
to set any looking for it, is about the unlikeliest thing
in the world to encounter there. Not a few expositors,
bringing this passage into connexion with Jude 23, find
reference in both to those ceremonial uncleannesses spoken
of in Lev. xv. and elsewhere, which so very easily may be
moral uncleannesses as well. I do not think this to lie
in the words ; but that every defilement (fio\vo-/jLos) of the
flesh and spirit (2 Cor. vii. 1) is here intended.
' And they shall walk with Me in white : for they are
worthy? — Here are many promises in one. The promise
of life, for only the quick or living walk, the dead are
still ; of liberty, for the free walk, and not the fast bound ;
of beauty, for the grace and dignity of long garments only
appears to the full, when the wearer of them is in motion ;
therefore is it that 'the Scribes desire to walk in long
robes ' (Luke xx. 46). And all this has its corresponding
truth in the kingdom of heaven. God's saints and ser-
vants here in this world of grace, and no doubt also in
that world of glory, are best seen, and most to be admired,
when they are engaged in active services of love. And
such they shall have. They shall walk (cf. Zecb. iii. 7)
with their Lord, shall be glorified together with Him
(Rom. viii. 17; John xvii. 24); his servants shall serve
Him (Rev. xxii. 3). And why? i for they are worthy?
God does not refuse to ascribe a worthiness to men (Matt.
x. 10, 11; xxii. 8 ; Luke xx. 35 ; xxi. 36; 2 Thess. i. 5,
11 ; Wisd. iii. 5); although this worthiness must ever be
contemplated as relative, and not absolute ; as resting on
Grod's free acceptance of an obedience which would fain be
perfect, even while it actually is most imperfect, and on
174 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [ill. 5.
this his acceptance and allowance of it alone. There are
those who ' are worthy ' according to the rules which free
grace has laid down, although there are none worthy
according to those conditions which strict justice might
have laid down; and Cfod is 'faithful' (1 John i. 9), in
that having set forth these conditions of grace, He will
observe and abide by them. Vitringa well : ' Dignitas
hie notat proportionem et congruentiam, quae erat inter
statum gratiae quo fuerant in his terris, et glorias quara
Dominus ipsis decreverat, wstimandam ex ipsa lege
gratiaz.'' Compare Bishop Bull's Sermon, The worthiness
of the partakers of future glory (Works, vol. i. p. 216).
There is another very fearful * they are worthy ' in this
Book (xvi. 6), where no such observation would need to be
made, where no such mitigation of the word's force would
be required ; for see the antithesis between death as the
wages (otycovia) of sin, and eternal life as the gift
{^dpLa-^a) of God, Kom. vi. 23.
Yer. 5. ' He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed
in white raiment? — A repetition of the promise of the
verse preceding. They who have kept their garments
here, as a few in Sardis to whom the Lord bears testi-
mony (ver. 4) had done, shall have brighter garments
given to them there, ' vestes vita?,' as in the book of
Enoch they are called. Of white as the colour of heaven,
and of white garments as shining garments of glory,
there has been already occasion to speak; see on ii. 17.
Add the words of Grrotius : ' Xsv/ca Ijxaria, hoc loco et
infra, iii. i8;iv. 4, sunt vestes coruscantes, et sic sume
<TTo\as Xzvkcls, infra, vi. II ; vii. 9, 13.' It is not in
Scripture merely that white is thus presented as the
colour of heaven, and white garments the suitable inves-
titure of the blessed inhabitants of heaven. The same,
HI. 5.] SARDIS, REV. III. 1-6. 175
out of a deep inborn symbolism, repeats itself in heathen
antiquity as well ; thus see Plato, Legg. xii. 956; Cicero,
Legg. ii. 18; Virgil, Mm. vi. 665 ; Ovid, Fast. iii. 363 ;
iv. 419, 420; Metam. x. 432. As ' raiment'' in the
literal sense of the word is inconceivable in heaven, we
must understand by it here, that clothing with light as
with a garment, which shall be theirs who shall then
''shine out (^sic\diJi,^r overt, Matt. xiii. 43; cf. Dan. xii. 3)
as the sun in the kingdom of their Father ; ' this vesture
of light being indeed their raiment, and yet for all this
not something external to them, but the expression out-
wardly of all which now inwardly they are. The glorified
body, defecated of all its dregs and impurities, whatever
remained of these having been precipitated in death, and
now a body transformed and transfigured into the likeness
of Christ's body (Phil. iii. 2 1 ), this aeo/xa sirovpdviov, as
contrasted with the aoyfxa stti^ziov and ^olkov which we
now wear (1 Cor. xv. 40, 47), with its robe, atmosphere,
and effluence of light, is itself, I believe, the ' white rai-
menV which Christ here promises to his redeemed.
There are some beautiful observations on this matter in
Delitzsch, Bibl. Psychologie, p. 374.
I have noted already (see ii. 10) the frequency, as it
appears to me, of the scoffing side-glances at Scripture
which occur in the writings of Lucian. It would be curious
to know whether he intended a mock at this glorious hope
of the Christian, when, relating the tales current about
Peregrinus, and the fiery passage of this charlatan in the
fashion of Empedocles to a mock immortality, he makes
one of this impostor's followers assure his hearers that
shortly after the disappearance of Peregrinus in his funeral
pile, he beheld him walking in a white garment, shining,
and crowned with a garland of olive (sv Xsvkj) ia6P]Ti,
176 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [ill. 5.
7T£pi7raTovvTa, cpaiSpov, kotlvw ts icrTSfifisvov, De Mort.
Pereg. 40). The coincidence of one or two such passages
we might attribute to accident ; but they recur too often
for any such explanation. See a very good article by
Planck, Lucian und das Christenthum, in the Theol.
Stud, und Krit. 185 1, pp. 826-902; where also there
are references to some earlier essays on the same subject.
' And I will not blot out his name out of the book of
life.'' — It is much more than a simple negative ; ov /x?;
E%a\£ityc0 = i nequaquam delebo.' Our Translators have
elsewhere given to this ov /xrj its full force ; thus John vi.
37 ('in no wise'); viii. 51 ; xiii. 8 ('never'); but this
only too rarely ; for see Luke xxi. 33 ; Rev. ii. 1 1. We
read of a ' book of life,' Exod. xxxii. 32, 33 ; Ps.lxix. 29 ;
Dan. xii. I ; Phil. iv. 3 ; Rev. xiii. 8 ; xx. 15 ; xxi. 27 ; of
those 'written among the living' (ypafyivrss els ^(oi'-jv) of
Isai. iv. 3 ; and resting on the same image, our Lord
speaks of some whose names ' are written in heaven '
(Luke x. 20; cf. Heb. xii. 23). These are the rsray/xsvot
els ^corjv of Acts xiii. 48. Famous cities of this world,
great Italian above all, Florence and Genoa for example,
have had, or still may have, their ' book of gold ' (libro
d'oro), in which to be written has implied participation in
all the privileges, rights, honours, and advantages which
that city could confer ; while to be blotted out from this
book would mark a man as infamous, stript of all the
honours and dignities which once he called his own. These
at their best are but weak earthly copies of the glory or the
shame which are the portion of those who bear themselves
worthily or unworthily of that heavenly polity to which
they have been called. The intimation here given that
there are names, which, having been'once written in that
book, might yet be afterwards blotted out of it, has proved
III. 5.] SARDIS, REV. III. 1-6. 177
not a little perplexing to followers of Augustine, who will
not be content in this mystery of predestination with
having some Scriptures on their side, and leaving the
reconciliation of these and those others which are appa-
rently contradictory to these, for another and a higher
state of knowledge ; but who would fain make it appear
that all Scripture is with them (see Turretine, De Libro
Vital, pp. 9-22). If this passage had stood by itself, it
would not have been hard for them to answer, as indeed
they do answer, that all who ' are written in the book of
life' overcome ; therefore that this promise holds good for
them all, and none who are therein written have their
names blotted out from this book. Bat, unfortunately,
beside and behind this passage, there are others, not capa-
ble of this solution, and principally Exod. xxxii. 32 ; Ps.
lxix. 29; Eev. xxii. 19. How much violence they are
obliged to use, before they can compel such Scriptures ;is
these within the limits of their system, may be judged
from Augustine's own comment on the second of them
( Enarr. in Ps. lxix.): ' Deleantur de libro viventium, et
cum justis non scribantur, non sic accipere debemus quod
quemquam Deus scribat in libro vitae, et deleat ilium ; si
homo dixit, Quod scripsi scripsi, Deus quemquam scribit
et delet ? . . . . Isti ergo quomodo inde delentur, ubi
nunquam scriptisunt? Hoc dictum est secundum spem
ipsorum, quia ibi se scriptos putabunt. Quid sit, dele-
antur de libro vitae ? Et ipsis constet non illos ibi esse.'
The warning is surely an instructive one, when so holy
and truth-loving a man as Augustine can, in favour of a
foregone conclusion, thus violently deal with a word of
God's.
- But I will confess his name before my Father, and
before his Angels.' — Christ had spoken when on earth of
N
178 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [ill. 5.
confessing those who confessed Him, before his Father in
heaven (Matt. x. 32, 33), and before the Angels (Luke
xii. 8, 9). That ' in heaven ' is of course omitted now, for
there is no longer any contrast between the Father in
heaven and the Son on earth; but the two confessions,
which were separated before, appear united now ; and in
general we may observe of this Epistle that in great part
it is woven together of sayings which the Lord had already
uttered once or oftener in the days during which He
pitched his tabernacle among men ; He now setting his
seal from heaven upon his words uttered on earth. On
these costly mosaic-works of Scripture, which in our care-
less reading of it we so often overlook, there are some
beautiful remarks in Delitzsch, Commentar uber den
Psalter, on Ps. cxxxv. ; which Psalm is itself, as are also
Psalms xcvii. xcviii. notable examples of the skill of a
divine Artificer herein.
Nor will it be inopportune to observe further what
signal internal evidence this same fact, analysed a little
closer, will supply on another point; upon this, namely,
that these Epistles are what they profess themselves to be,
namely Epistles directly, and in their form no less than
their substance, from Christ the Lord. With no unworthy
thought about their inspiration, we might very easily come
to regard them as having passed through the mind of St.
John, and having been recast, in their form at least, in the
passage. What they would have been, if they had under-
gone any such modifying process as this, St. John's own
Epistles tell us. But nothing of the kind has found place.
It is the Lord Himself who speaks throughout ; who not
merely suggests the thoughts, but dictates the words. That
St. .lohn is here merely his organ, that the Master is
speaking and not the servant, is, I say, remarkably attested
III. 6.] SAUDIS, REV. III. 1-6. 179
in the fact of the numerous points of contact and coinci-
dence between these seven Epistles and the words of Christ
as recorded in the Gospels, in the three synoptic Gospels
above all. Had these coincidences been all or nearly all
with St. John's own Gospel, this might have suggested
quite a different explanation. But it is mainly the three
earlier Grospels which furnish them. Thus in this Sardian
Epistle alone, where, it is true, the points of resemblance
are more numerous than anywhere else, spiritual activity
is set forth as a watching, ver. 3 ; with which compare
Matt. xxiv. 42; xxv. 13 ; xxvi. 41 ; Mark xiii. 37. Christ
likens his unlooked-for coming to that of a thief (ibid.) ;
He does the same, Matt, xxiv. 43 ; Luke xii. 39. He
speaks here of blotting out a name from the book of life
(ver. 5), there of names written in the book of life (Luke
x. 20) ; here of confessing his servants before his Father
(ibid.), the parallels of which from the Grospels have just
been given. The remarkable reappearance in this and in
all these Epistles of the words so often on our Lord's lips,
according to the three first Gospels, but never noticed in
the fourth, ' He that hath an ear, let him hear ' (Matt. xi.
1 5 ; xiii. 9, 43 ; Mark iv. 9, 23 ; vii. 16, 33 ; Luke viii. 8 ;
xiv. 35), has been dwelt on already, p. 95.
Ver. 6. ' He that hath an ear, let him hear what the
Spirit saith unto the Churches.'' — Compare ii. 7.
n 2
VI.
EPISTLE TO THE CHUECH OF PHILADELPHIA.
Eev. iii. 7-13.
Ver. 7. 'And to the Angel of the Church in Philadel-
phia write.'' — Philadelphia, at the foot of Mount Tmolus,
on the banks of the little river Cogamus, which not far
from the city falls into the Hermus (Pliny, H. N. v. 29,
30), was built by Attalus Philadelphus, king of Pergamum
(he died B.C 138), from whom it derives its name. <£>i\-
a$£\(f)ia ttjs 'Ao-tas1 St. Ignatius calls it in the salutation
of his Epistle, § I ; to distinguish it from other cities
like-named. No city of Asia Minor suffered more, or so
much, from violent and often-recurring earthquakes —
ttoXls c-sio-fioiv TrXrfprjs Strabo calls it (xiii. 4), and de-
scribes it as almost depopulated in consequence of these.
In the great earthquake in the reign of Tiberius Phil-
adelphia was nearly destroyed (Tacitus, Ann. ii. 47).
Despite of all drawbacks, it still retains a Christian
population, has several churches and an active commerce.
' These things saith He that is Holy.' — Christ claims
here to be 6 "A<yco9, The Holy One ; at Dan. ix. 24 He
is ay 109 dyicov : cf. Acts ii. 27 ; xiii. 35 ; Heb. vii. 26. In
these latter passages, however, oatos, not ayios, stands in
the original ; nor are these words perfectly identical,
though we have but the one word ' holy ' by which to
III. 7.] PHILADELPHIA, REV. III. /—1 3. 131
render them both. The oaios, if a man, is one who
diligently observes" all the sanctities of religion ; anterior,
many of them, to all law, the 'jus et fas,' with a stress
on the latter word ; thus in the Euthyphro of Plato
6(tl6tt]s is continually used as equivalent to svasfteta.
If applied to (rod, as at Deut. xxxii. 4 ; Kev. xv. 4 ;
xvi. 5, and here, He is One in whom these eternal sanc-
tities reside ; who is Himself the root and ground of them
all. The aycos is the separate from evil, with the perfect
hatred of that evil from which he is separate. But holi-
ness in this absolute sense belongs only to God ; not to
Angels, for ' He charged his Angels with folly ' (Job iv.
18), and certainly not to men (Jam. iii. 2 ; Gen. vi. 5 ;
viii. 2 1 ). He then that claims to be ' The Holy One,'' —
a name which Jehovah in the Old Testament continually
claims for his own (Isai. vi. 3; xl. 25 ; xliii. 15), — im-
plicitly claims to be Grod ; takes to Himself a title which is
(rod's alone, which it would be blasphemy for any other to
appropriate ; and, unless we are prepared for the alter-
native that He is guilty of this, can only be accepted as
Himself God (see my Synonyms of the Neiv Testament,
§88).
' He that is true.'' — We must not confound aXrjdtvosf
(= 'verus') with aXijO^s ( = 'verax'). God is a\r)dtjs
( = a^£i;S^s, Tit. i. 2), as He cannot lie, the truth-speak-
ing and truth-loving God ; with whom every word is Yea
and Amen ; but He is akrjdivos, as fulfilling all that is
involved in the name God, in contrast with those who are
called gods, but who, having the name of gods, have
nothing of the truth, wicked spirits, or dead idols. That
is a\r)0Lv6s which fulfils its own idea to the highest
possible degree ; as Origen (In Joan. torn. ii. § 4) well
puts it : akrjdivos, irpos avrcSiacrrokyu gklcL$ real tvttov
182 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [ill. J.
kol sltcovos. Nor is d\7]6tvos only, as when thus pre-
dicated of God, the true as contrasted with the absolutely
false ; but as contrasted with the subordinately true, with
all imperfect and partial realizations of the idea; thus
Christ is cpcos dXrjdivov (John i. 9 ; i John ii. 8), apros
d\7]6iv6s (John vi. 32), d/j,7rs\os a\.r)0ivrj (John xv. 1);
there is a cr/crjvr) akydivr) in heaven (Heb. viii. 2). In
each of these cases the antithesis is not between the true
and the false, but between the perfect and the imperfect,
the idea fully, and the idea only partially, realized ; for
John the Baptist also was a light (John v. 35), and Moses
gave bread from heaven (Ps. cv. 40), and Israel was a vine
of God's planting (Ps. lxxx. 8), and the tabernacle pitched
in the wilderness, if only a figure of the true, was yet
pitched at God's express command (Exod. xxv.). Christ
then, in declaring Himself 6 akr]6iv6s, declares that
whatever names, titles, offices He assumes, these in Him
are realized to the full, reach their culminating glory ;
that the idea and the fact in Him are, what they never
are nor can be in any other, absolutely commensurate.
' He that hath the key of David, He that openeth and
no man shutteth ; and shutteth, and no man openeth.' —
Let us note here, but only that we may avoid, a not un-
common error of interpretation, namely, the identifying,
or confounding, of this ' key of David ' with the * key of
knowledge,' which in the days of his earthly ministry
Christ accused the Scribes that they had taken away (Luke
xi. 52). They who thus identify the two regard Him as
here claiming to be the One who unlooses the seals of
Scripture, opens the closed door into its inner chambers ;
who by his advent first made intelligible the dark and ob-
scure prophecies of the Old Testament, and by his Spirit
opens and enlightens the eyes of men to see and under-
III. 7.] PHILADELPHIA, EEV. III. 7— 13. 183
stand the deep things which are written in his Word.
Into this erroneous interpretation Origen not unfrequently
falls, bringing Rev. v. 7-9 into relation with these two
passages as a third, having the same import ; thus In Joan.
torn. v. § 4 ; Sel. in Psalm. Ps. i. ; Hilary no less (Prol.
in Libr. Psalm. §§ 5, 6) ; and Jerome (Ep. 50, de Stud.
Script). But ' the key ' is £%ov<rias avuftoXov (Andreas),
the symbol of power (cf. xx. 1 ) ; and ' the key of David '
is ' the key of the house of David,' of that royal household
whereof David was chief, and all his servants members.
Cocceius : ' Clavem Davidis vocat, quia ea regia clavis, et
is tempore ministerii sui clausit et aperuit, typum Christi
gerens ; vide Ps. ci. 4-8.' But David being a type of
Christ, so eminent a one, that Christ more than once
actually bears his name (Ezek. xxxiv. 23, 24), 'the house
of David ' alluded to thus can mean nothing less than the
heavenly house, the kingdom of heaven ; and the Lord is,
in fact, declaring, ' I have the keys of the kingdom of
heaven.' Those keys which He committed to Peter and
his fellow Apostles (Matt. xvi. 19), He announces here to
be in the highest sense his own. It depends on Him, the
supreme /eA^SoO^oy in the house of God, who shall see the
King's face, and who shall be excluded from it. Men are
admitted into, or shut out from, that presence according
to the good pleasure of his will; for it is He, and no other,
* that openeth, and no man shutteth; that shutteth, and
no man oyeneth^ Christ, as we learn here, has not so
committed the keys of the kingdom of heaven, with the
power of binding and loosing, to any other, his servants,
but that He still retains the highest administration of them
in his own hands. If at any time there is error in their
binding and loosing, if they make sad the heart which He
has not made sad, if they speak peace to the heart to
184 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [ill. 7.
which He has not spoken peace (Ezek. xiii. 19), then his
sentence stands, and not theirs. For the promise that
He would ratify and confirm in heaven the judgments of
his Church on earth, could only be absolute and uncon-
ditional so long as the Church retained such a discern-
ment of spirits as was never at fault. When once this
had departed from it, when therefore it was exposed to
possible mistake and error, from that moment the promise
could be only conditional. From the highest tribunal
upon earth there lies an appeal to a tribunal of yet
higher instance in heaven ; to his ' that openeth, and
no man shutteth; that shutteth, and no man openeth ; '
and when through ignorance, or worse than ignorance,
any wrong has been done to any of his servants here, He
will redress it there, disallowing and reversing in heaven
the mistaken or unrighteous sentences of earth. It was
in faith of this that Hus, when the greatest Council which
Christendom had seen for a thousand years delivered his
soul to Satan, did himself confidently commend it to the
Lord Jesus Christ. In the same confidence, many a
faithful confessor at Eome or Madrid has walked to the
stake, his yellow san-benito all painted over with devils
in token and prophecy of those with whom his portion
should be ; but has never doubted the while that his lot
should be indeed with Him who retains in his own hands
' the key of David ; ' who thus could open for him, and
who would, though all who visibly represented here the
Church had shut him out with extreme malediction at
once from the Church militant on earth and the Church
triumphant in heaven.
That the substrate of this language, and, so to say, the
suggestion of this thought, is to be sought at Isai. xxii.,
there can be no reasonable doubt. The prophet there
III. 7.] PHILADELPHIA, KEY. III. 7— 13. 185
describes the shameful rejection of Shebna, the major-
domus or chief oIkov6[xos of the king, who had occupied
for a while the place of highest dignity and honour (i
Kin. iv. 6; xviii. 3 ; 2 Chron. xxvi. 21), but whom the
Lord beheld as unworthy of this, and from which He puts
him down with shame and dishonour, with the substitu-
tion of Eliakim in his room, and the installation of the
one into the honours and dignities which the other had
lost. It needs only to quote the words as they occur in
the Septuagint : 8u>au> avru> ttjv kXsiSu oXkov AavlS kirl
ra> w/jlo) avrov, ical cwol^sl kcii ouk hcrrai o wkokXelcov,
Ka\ Kksiasi, kclI ouk sarac 6 dvoiycov (ver. 22). The
prophet describes all this with an emphasis and fulness,
which, however highly we may conceive of Eliakim, is
surprising and inexplicable, until we look beyond that
present, and read in that Scripture not merely the history
of a revolution in the royal palace or house of David, — a
putting down of one and setting up of another ; but, over
and above this, the type and real prophecy of an event
immeasurably greater, the indignant rejection of all those
unworthy stewards who in God's spiritual house had
long abused their position, with the exaltation of the true
►Steward of the mysteries of God, who should be faithful
in all his house, in their room. Vitringa (Comm. in Esai.
xxii.) : ' Quae Eliakimo promittitur prserogativa dignitatis,
fore ut clave s gerens Domus Davidis clauderet et aperiret
solus, et omnis ab eo suspenderetur sarcina et decus Do-
mus Davidis (in quam hie cadit emphasis) : tarn magnifice
et ample dictum est, ut plus dixisse videretur Propheta
quam debebat, si id in aliquo subjecto nobiliore, cujus
Eliakimus typum gerere poterat, olim illustrius non con-
sequeretur exemplum. Certe sunt verbi prophetici recessus
profundi.'
186 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [ill. 9.
Ver. 8. ' / know thy works : behold, I have set before
thee an open door, and no man can shut iV — This ' open
door ' is best explained by a reference to I Cor. xvi. 9 ;
2 Cor. ii. 12 ; Acts xiv. 27 ; Col. iv. 3. Vitringa: ' Notat
commodam Evangelii praedicandi occasionem.' To this
Philadelphian Church, weak probably in numbers, en-
joying few worldly advantages, Grod had opened ' a great
door and effectual ' for the declaring of his truth ; and,
thoifgh there were many adversaries, none could shut it.
For was not He who opened, the same who had ' the key
of David ' ? and when He opened, none could shut ;
when he made room for his truth in the heart of one or of
many (Acts xvi. 14; Job xxxiii. 16), none could hinder
it from having free course and being glorified ; even as, if
He shut and withheld a blessing, all other might and
power would be wholly unavailing to make for it an en-
trance there.
(For thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my tvoi'd,
and hast not denied my name.'' — They were probably but
a little flock, poor in worldly goods, of small account in
the eyes of men (cf. I Cor. i. 26-28), having ' little
strength ' — not ' a little strength,'' which would rather be
an acknowledgment of power than of weakness — the fitter
therefore that Grod should be glorified in them and by
them ; even as He had been ; for, put to the proof, they
had kept his word, and had not denied his name (Zech.
xii. 8 ; Isai. lvi. 4, 5). The aorists, srijprjcras, ov/c rjpvrjao),
refer to some distinct occasions in the past, when, being
thus put to the test, they had approved themselves faith-
ful to Him.
Ver. 9. ' Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of
Satan, which say they are Jeivs, and are not, but do lie;
behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy
III. 9.] PHILADELPHIA, KEV. III. 7~ 13. 187
feet, and to know that I have loved thee.'' — Here is the
reward of their faithfulness, of the entrance which they
had made by that ' open door ' which the Lord set before
them. The promise to Philadelphia, in respect of Jewish
adversaries, is larger and richer than that to Smyrna. All
which Christ there promised was, that these enemies should
not prevail against them (ii. 9, 10) ; but here are better
promises, namely, that they shall prevail against their
enemies ; and that with a victory the most blessed of all,
in which victors and vanquished should be blessed alike,
and should rejoice together. In reward of their faithful-
ness, they should see some of these fierce gainsayers and
opposers, some of this ' synagogue of Satan ' (see ii. 9 ;
cf. Jer. ix. 2 : avvoSos ddsrovvrcov), falling on their faces,
and owning that God was with them of a truth. The
' worship ' before their feet, of course, does not mean more
than this ; cf. Isai. xlix. 23 ; lx. 14; Matt. viii. 2 ; 2 Kin.
ii. 15; Dan. ii. 46. This act of homage, the Trpoo-Kvvsiit,
may imply much more (John iv. 21 ; Eev. xiv. 19; Acts
viii. 27) ; but manifestly does not so here. It is only some
of their adversaries who shall worship thus ; for there is
no promise during the present dispensation that all Israel,
but only that a remnant, shall be saved (Rom. ix. 27).
In our Version we have failed to express, that they are
only some ' of the synagogue of Satan ' who should thus
acknowledge the presence of God in the Church of his
dear Son, should look at Him whom they had pierced
(Zech. xii. 10), and own that this Jesus of Nazareth was
indeed He of whom Moses and the prophets wrote, the
promised Messiah, the King of Israel, that should turn
iniquity from Jacob. In connexion with this promise,
there is an interesting passage in the Epistle of Ignatius
to this same Philadelphian Church (c. 6), implying the
188 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [ill. 10.
actual presence in the midst of it, of converts from Juda-
ism, who now preached the faith which once they perse-
cuted. We may say too that this same promise has been
gloriously fulfilled to other Churches in our own days, or
almost in our own days, as we call to mind the many
of Germany's noblest theologians and philosophers, her
Neanders and her Stahls ; who, being of the stock of Abra-
ham, have yet had the veil taken from their hearts, and
owned of the Church of Christ that God was with it of a
truth. It is a singular evidence of the complete change
in the relations between the Jew and Gentile, and of both
to the kingdom of Grod, that exactly this same promise
should find place under the Old Covenant, while yet the
parts are exchanged which the one and the other should
fulfil (Isai. xlv. 14 ; xlix. 23 ; lx. 14).
Ver. 1 o. ' Because thou hast kept the word of my pa-
tience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation,
which shall come upon all the world, to try them that
dwell upon the earth.'' — What does the Lord exactly mean
here by ' the word of my patience ' ? There are some
who find reference to certain special words and sayings of
Christ's, in which He has exhorted his servants to patience,
or declared the need they would have of it ; such words
as occur at Luke viii. 15; Matt. x. 22; xxiv. 13; cf.
Eev. i. 9. Much better, however, to take the whole
Gospel as ' the word of Christ's 'patience,' everywhere
teaching, as it does, the need of a patient waiting for
Christ, till He, the waited-for so long, shall at length ap-
pear. Observe the benigna talio of the kingdom of God :
' because thou hast kept ' (sTrjprjo-as), therefore ' I also
will keep ' (r^p^a-co) ; ' because thou hast kept my word,
therefore in return I will keep thee.' The promise does
not imply that the Philadelphian Church should be ex-
III. 10.] PHILADELPHIA, HEV. III. 7— 1 3. 189
empted from persecutions which should come on all other
portions of the Church ; that by any special privilege they
should be excused from fiery trials through which others
should be called to pass. It is a better promise than this ;
and one which, of course, they share with all who are
faithful as they are — to be kept in temptation, not to be
exempted/rom temptation {rrjpsiv sk not being here = rrjpstv
airo, Jam. i. 27 ; Prov. vii. 5 ; cf. 2 Thess. iii. 3) ; a bush
burning, and yet not consumed (cf. Isai. xliii. 2). They
may take courage ; the . blasts of persecution will indeed
blow ; but He who permits, uses, and restrains them, will
not suffer his barn-floor to be winnowed with so rough a
wind that chaff and grain shall alike be borne away.
This ' hour of temptation ' is characterised as coming
' upon all the ivorld, to try them that dwell upon the
earth.'' These, according to the constant use of the Apo-
calypse, include all mankind, with the exception of the
airapyrj of the Church (vi. 10 ; xi. 10; xiii. 8, 14); who
are contemplated as already seated in heavenly places with
Christ Jesus (Ephes. ii. 6). The great catastrophes which
come upon the earth are ' temptations ' to the world no
less than to the Church. God is then putting ' them that
dwell upon the earth ' to proof, whether now at least they
will not repent, and, when his judgments are in the world,
learn righteousness, however they may in times past have
hardened themselves against Him. So too such times of
great tribulation are trials or ' temptations,'' because they
bring out the unbelief, hardness of heart, blasphemy
against God, which were before latent in the children of
this world ; hidden from others, hidden from themselves,
till that ' hour of temptation ' came and revealed them
(Rev. ix. 20, 21 ; xvi. 9, 11, 21). Thus Moses speaks of
the plagues as the ' temptations of Egypt ' (Deut. iv. 34 ;
190 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [ill. II.
vii. 19 ; xxix. 3) ; and they were such, inasmuch as they
brought out the pride and obduracy that were in Pharaoh's
heart and in his servants', as these would never in any other
way have been revealed either to themselves or to others.
Ver. 1 1 . * Behold, I come quickly : hold that fast ivhich
thou hast, that no man take thy crown.'' — This announce-
ment of the speedy coming of the Lord, the ever-recurring
key-note of this book (cf. xxii. 7, 12, 20), is sometimes
used as a word of fear for those who are abusing the
Master's absence, wasting his goods and ill-treating their
fellow-servants ; careless and secure as men for whom no
day of reckoning is in store (Matt. xxiv. 48-5 1 ; 2 Thess.
i. 7-9 ; 1 Pet. iv. 5 ; cf. Jam. v. 9 ; Eev. ii. 5, 16) ; but
sometimes as a word of infinite comfort for those who
with difficulty and painfulness hold their ground. He
that should bring the long contest at once to an end ; who
should at once turn the scale, and for ever, in favour of
righteousness and truth, is even at the door (Jam. v. 8 ;
Phil. iv. 5 ; 2 Thess. i. 20 ; Heb. x. 37 ; 2 Pet. iii. 14).
Such a word of comfort is this announcement here : ' Yet
a little while, and thy patience shall have its full reward ;
only in the interval, and till I come, hold that fast ivhich
thou hast.' That which Philadelphia ' haol ' we have just
seen — zeal, patience, with little means accomplishing not
a little work.
' That no man take thy cvoivn? — These last words
some have explained, ' that no man step into that place of
glory which was designed for thee ; ' after the manner, for
example, that Jacob stepped into Esau's place (Gren. xxv.
34 ; xxvii. 36) ; Judah into Reuben's (Gren. xlix. 4, 8) ;
David into Saul's (i Sam. xvi. I, 13); Eliakim into Sheb-
na's (Isai. xxii. 15-25); Benaiah into Joab's (1 Kin. ii.
35) ; Zadok into Abiathar's (ibid.) ; Matthias into Judas's
III. II.] PHILADELPHIA, REV. III. /— 13. 191
(Acts i. 25, 26); Gentiles into the place of Jews (Matt.
21, 43 ; Rom. xi. 1 1); men into that of angels ; the num-
ber of the elect, as Augustine concludes from these words,
remaining still the same, and having been determined
from the beginning, only some filling the places which
others have left empty, and thus taking their crown : Be
Concept, et Grat. c. 1 3 : 'Si enim alius non est accepturus,
nisi iste perdiderit, certus est numerus ' ; cf. Gregory the
Great, Moral, xxxiv. 20). But these thus adduced received
indeed a privilege or prerogative — a ' crown ' we may call
it, which others lost ; they did not take it from those others
(the ' accipiat ' of the Vulgate is wrong here ; it should be
rather ' auferat ') ; and it is quite inconceivable that any
who should ever himself wear the crown, should be set
forth as taking it from another. This taking, or seeking
to take, the crowns from others' brows is the part, not of
the good who would wear them on their own, but of the
wicked who would see others discrowned and disinherited
like themselves. Instead of ascribing to the words any
such meaning, we must regard them as exactly equivalent
to those of St. Paul : ' Let no man beguile you of your
reivard"1 (KarafipafizveTU) v/xds, Col. ii., 18); and as
giving no slightest hint that what this Angel lost, another
would gain ; the crown which he forfeited, another would
wear ; and that other one who had despoiled him of it.
Neither, again, may we understand ' thy crotun ' as the
crown ' which thou hast," but the crown * which thou
mayest have' (cf. 2 Tim. iv. 8: air ok sirai /jloc 6 rrjs
SiKatoavvrjs arsfyavos). ' Let no man,' Christ would say,
' deprive thee of the glorious reward laid up for thee in
heaven, of which many, my adversaries and thine, would
fain rob thee ; but which only one, even thyself, can ever
cause thee to forfeit indeed.'
192 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [ill. 12.
Ver. 12. iHim that overcometh ivill I make a pillar in
the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out.'' — It
need hardly be said, except that some have denied it, that
this is a promise, as are all the others in these Epistles, of
future blessedness, belonging not to the members of the
Church militant here on earth, but of the Church trium-
phant in heaven. Marckius brings out here excellently
well the force of the words, ' / ivill make ' : ' Nee illud hie
praetermittendum est quod Christus se facturum suos tales
dicit, cum praeter gratiam Christi ad hoc prorsus necessa-
riam, sic immatur naturalis omnium a templo hoc abalien-
atio, debilitas summa, et fceditas non minor.' Compare
Matt. iv. 19 : 'I will make you fishers of men.' ' Pillar '
(<ttv\os) is not to be interpreted here exactly as it is at
Gal. ii. 9. The ' pillars ' there are certain eminent Apostles,
the main supports, under Christ, of the Church in its mi-
litant condition here upon earth ; and, as such, towering
above the rest of the faithful. But there is no such com-
parative preeminence indicated here ; as is evident from
the fact that the promise to every one of the faithful, to
each that has overcome, is, that he shall be made * a pillar
in the temple of God ; ' Christ so speaks, as Jerome (in
Gal. ii. 9) says well, ' docens omnes credentes qui adver-
sarium vicerint, posse columnas Ecclesiae fieri.' To find
any allusion here, as Vitringa and others have done, to the
two monumental pillars, Jachin and Boaz, which Solomon
set up, not in the temple, but in the open court before the
temple (1 Kin. vii. 21 ; 2 Chron. iii. 15, 17 ; Jer. lii. 17),
is altogether beside the mark ; the words which follow, ' and
he shall go no more out,'' making this well nigh impossible.
These famous pillars were always ivithout the temple ;
they would therefore have served very ill to set forth the
blessedness of the redeemed, who shall be always within
III. 12.] PHILADELPHIA, REV. III. 7~ 13. 193
it. Other pillars might set forth this, but scarcely these,
contradicting in their position the central intention of
Christ's words here, which is to declare that he who over-
comes shall dwell in the house of God for ever. ' He shall
go no more out ; ' for, as the elect angels are fixed in
obedience, and have over-lived the possibility of falling,
have attained what the Schoolmen call the beata necessitas
boni, so shall it be one day with the redeemed. Gerhard
{Locc. Theoll. xxxii. 2) : ' Erit perpetuus heres geternorum
bonorum, nee ullius EKTrrwa-sms ipsi imminebit periculum,
qui columna est, symbolum immobilitatis in statu glorise
caelestis.' Once admitted into the heavenly kingdom, they
have their place there for ever ; the door is shut (Matt.
xxv. 10 ; cf. Gen. vii. 16) ; not merely to exclude others,
but safely to include them, who shall thus be ' ever with
the Lord ' ( 1 Thess. iv. 1 7). In that heavenly household
the son, every son who has once entered, abideth for ever
(John viii. 35 ; cf. Isai. xxii. 23) ; no wonder, therefore,
that Augustine should exclaim, ' Quis non desideret illam
Civitatem, unde amicus non exit, quo inimicus non intrat ? '
' And Iivill write upon him the name of my God, and
the name of the City of my God, which is New Jerusalem,
which cometh doivn out of heaven from my God.' — Christ
will write these names, of his God, and of the City of his
God, upon him that overcometh — not upon it, the pillar.
It is true indeed that there were sometimes inscriptions on
pillars, — which yet would be arrjXai rather than <ttv\,ol,
— but the image of the pillar is now dismissed, and only
the conqueror remains. In confirmation of this, that it
is the person and not the pillar, whom the Lord contem-
plates now, we find further on the redeemed having the
name of God, or the seal of God, on their foreheads (vii.
3 ; ix. 4 ; xiv. 1 ; xxii. 4), with probable allusion to the
0
194 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [ill. 12.
golden plate inscribed with the name of Jehovah, which
the High Priest wore upon his (Exod. xxviii. 36-38). In
the ' kingdom of priests ' this dignity shall not be any
more the singular prerogative of one, but the common
dignity of all. Exactly in the same way, in the hellish
caricature of the heavenly kingdom, the votaries of the
Beast are stigmatics, having his name upon their fore-
heads (xiii. 16, 17 ; xvii. 5 ; and cf. xx. 4). — What the name
of this ' City of my God ' is, we are told Ezek. xlviii. 35 :
' The Lord is there ' (cf. Isai. lx. 14 ; Jer. xxxiii. 16). Any
other name would but faintly express its glory ; ' having
the glory of God ' (Rev. xxi. 11, 23). He that hath the
name of this City written upon him is thereby declared free
of it. Even while on earth he had his true 7ro\lr£v/xa iv
ovpavols (Phil. iii. 20; see Ellicott thereon) ; the state, city,
or country to which he belonged was a heavenly one ; but
still his citizenship was latent ; he was one of God's hidden
ones ; but now he is openly avouched, and has a right
to enter in by the gates into the City (xxii. 14). This
heavenly City, the City which hath the foundations, and
for which Abraham looked (Heb. xi. 10), the ' continuing
City ' (xiii. 14), is but referred to here ; the full and mag-
nificent description of it is reserved as the fitting close of
the Book (xxi. 10 — xxii. 5) ; and not of this Book only, but
of the whole Bible. It goes by many and glorious names
in Scripture. ' That great City, the holy Jerusalem,' St.
John calls it (xxi. 10) ; claiming for it this title of < holy,'
which the earthly Jerusalem once possessed (Matt. iv. 5),
but which it had forfeited for ever. 'Jerusalem which is
above,' St. Paul calls it (Gral. iv. 26) ; while elsewhere for
him, or for another writing in his spirit, it is * the City of
the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem ' (Heb. xii. 22).
It is the ue KaXXcTroXts, rj avu> KaXkiirokis, as Cyril of
III. 12.] PHILADELPHIA, REV. III. 7~l'S- 195
Alexandria has strikingly named it ; being indeed that
Beautiful City, of which Plato did but dream, when he
devised this name (Rep. vii. 527 c); the Ovpavoirokis, as
Clement of Alexandria {Peed. ii. 12) has so grandly called
it, recovering and reclaiming for the City of God this
magnificent title ; which Greek sycophants in profane
flattery had devised for quite another city (Athenaeus, i.
36), for one * rerum pulcherrima ' as Virgil has not scru-
pled to call it, but if we may trust the pictures of it
drawn by those who saw it closest and knew it best, far
better deserving a name drawn from beneath than from
above.
The epithet ' new,' given here to the heavenly Jeru-
salem, sets it in contrast with the old, worn-out, sinful
city bearing the same name ; for kcuvos expresses this
antithesis of the new to the old as the out-worn ; its true
antithesis being not ap^alos, but Trakaios ; thus kcllvos
avdpwiros (Ephes. ii. 15), /ccuvr} kti<tis (2 Cor. v. 17;
Gal. vi. 15)? icaivov lyuCLTiov (Matt. ix. 16), while vios
would but express that which had recently come into
existence, as contrasted with that which had subsisted
long ; thus NsdiroXcs, the city recently founded (see my
Synonyms of the New Testament, § 60). There would
therefore have been no fitness in this last epithet here, for
this New Jerusalem, ' whose builder and maker is God,'
is at once new, in that sin has never wasted it, and at the
same time the oldest of all, dating as far back as the
promise of Gen. iii. Bengel has pertinently observed, that
St. John writes always in his Gospel 'Ispoo-oXvfia, in the
Apocalypse always 'IspovaaXtf/ju ; and gives, no doubt, the
true explanation of this : ' Non temere Johannes in Evan-
gelio omnibus locis scribit 'IspocroXv^a de urbe veteri : in
Apocalypsi semper 'IspovaaX^fx de Urbe Caelesti. 'Ispov-
196 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [ill. 12.
o-aXtffjt, est appellatio Hebraica, originaria et sanctior ;
*Ispoa6\v/xa deinceps obvia, Grseca, magis politica.'
Strange conclusions have been drawn from the words
that follow : ' which cometh down out of heaven from my
God.' The fancy of an actual material city to be let
down bodily from heaven to earth, an * aurea atque gem-
mata in terris Hierusalem,' as Jerome somewhat contemp-
tuously styles it (In Esai. Prcef. ad Lib. 1 8 ; cf. Origen,
Be Princ. ii. II. 2), has been cherished in almost all ages
of the Church by some, who have been unable to translate
the figurative language of Scripture into those far more
glorious realities of the heavenly TrdXiTsla, whereof those
figures were the outward garment and array. Thus the
Montanists believed that the New Jerusalem would de-
scend at Pepuza in Phrygia, the head-quarters of their
sect ; and already, according to Tertullian (Adv. Marc.
iii. 24), there were vouchsafed from time to time signs and
prophetic outlines in heaven of the fabric of the City
which should thus be let down to earth. For forty days,
he assures us, morning and evening, the splendid vision
and sky-pageant of this City had been seen suspended in
the air. But if only it be a City ' in which righteousness
dwelleth,' it will little matter whether we go to it, or it
come to us ; and in this shape assuredly it will not come.1
1 Glorious tilings have been spoken of this City of God, and not
in the sacred Scriptures only, but also in the writings of uninspired
men, in whose hearts, while they have mused on that Heavenly Jeru-
salem, the fire has kindled, and they have spoken with their tongues.
Thus our own 'Jerusalem, my happy home,' is worthy of no mean
place among spiritual songs. But the German and the Latin hymno-
logies are far richer, both indeed are extraordinarily rich, in these
hymns celebrating the glories of the New Jerusalem. Thus in German
how lovely is Meyfart's (1 590-1 642) 'Jerusalem, du hochgebaute
Stadt ' (Bunsen, Gesangbuch, no. 495) ; but grander still, and not in
Bunsen's collection, Kosegarten's (17 58-1 8 18) 'Stadt Gottes, deren
III. 12.] PHILADELPHIA, REV. III. 7— 1 3. 197
' And I will write upon him my new name.'' — This
* neiv name ' is not ' The Word of God ' (xix. 13), nor yet
* King of kings, and Lord of lords ' (xix. 16), as some will
have it. It is true that both of these appear in this
Book as names of Christ ; but for all that neither of them
could be called his ' neiv name ; ' the faithful having been
familiar with them from the beginning. The ' neiv name *
is that mysterious, and in the necessity of things uncom-
municated, and for the present time incommunicable,
name, which in that same sublimest of all visions is
referred to : ' He had a name written, that no man knew,
but He Himself (xix. 12) ; for none except God can
search out the deep things of God (1 Cor. ii. 12; cf.
Matt. xi. 27; Judg. xiii. 18). But the mystery of this
* new name^ which no man by searching could find out,
which in this present condition no man is so much as
diamantnen Ring' — and in the Latin, Hildebert (not to speak of
Prudentius, Psychom. 823-887, Bernard of Clugny, La us Patrice.
Ccelestis, and many others), has set forth the beauty and the blessed-
ness of that City of the living God, and his own longing to be num-
bered among the citizens of it, in verses such as these (see my Sacred
Latin Poetry, 3rd edit. p. 337).
Me receptet Sion ilia, Super petrani collocata,
Sion, David urbs tranquilla, Urbs in portu satis tuto,
Cujus faber auctor lucis, De longinquo te saluto,
Cujus portas Lignum crucis, Te saluto, te suspire,
Cujus mini lapis vivus, Te affecto, te requiro :
Cujus custos Rex festivus. Quantum tui gratulantur,
In hac urbe lux solennis, Quam festive convivantur,
Ver setemum, pax perennis ; Quis affectus eos stringat,
In hac odor implens caalos, Aut quae gemma muros pingat,
In hac semper festum melos ; Quis chalcedon, quis jacinthus,
Non est ibi corruptela, INorunt illi qui sunt iutus.
Non defectus, non querela; In plateis hujus urbis,
Non minuti, non deformes, Sociatus piis turbis,
Omnes Christo sunt conformes. Cum Aloyse et Elia,
Urbs cselestis, urbs beata, Pium cantem Alleluia.'
198 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [ill. 1 3.
capable of receiving, shall be imparted to the saints and
citizens of the New Jerusalem. They shall know, even
as they are known (1 Cor. xiii. 12).
Ver. 13. ' He that hath an ear, let him hear tuhat the
Spirit saith unto the Churches.^ — Cf. ii. 7. I cannot leave
this Epistle, so full of precious promises to a Church,
which, having little strength, had yet held fast the word
of Christ's patience, without citing a remarkable passage
from Gibbon {Decline and Fall, c. lxiv.), in which he
writes like one who almost believed that the threatenings
and promises of God did fulfil themselves in history :
4 In the loss of Ephesus the Christians deplored the fall
of the first Angel, the extinction of the first candlestick,
of the Revelations ; the desolation is complete ; and the
temple of Diana or the church of Mary will equally elude
the search of the curious traveller. The circus and three
stately theatres of Laodicea are now peopled with wolves
and foxes ; Sardes is reduced to a miserable village ; the
God of Mahomet, without a rival or a son, is invoked in
the mosques of Thyatira and Pergamus, and the populous-
ness of Smyrna is supported by the foreign trade of the
Franks and Armenians. Philadelphia alone has been saved
by prophecy, or courage. At a distance from the sea, for-
gotten by the emperors, encompassed on all sides by the
Turks, her valiant citizens defended their religion and
freedom above fourscore years, and at length capitulated
with the proudest of the Ottomans. Among the Greek
colonies and Churches of Asia, Philadelphia is still erect —
a column in a scene of ruins, — a pleasing example that the
paths of honour and safety may sometimes be the same '
VII.
EPISTLE TO THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA.
Rev. iii. 14-22.
Ver. 14. * And unto the Angel of the Church of the
Laodiceans write? — Laodicea, called often Laodicea on
the Lycus, to distinguish, it from other cities (they were
no less than six in all) bearing the same name, was a city
in Southern Phrygia (Phrygia Pacatiana), midway between
Philadelphia and Colosse. Its nearness to the latter city
is more than once assumed in St. Paul's Epistle to the
Colossians (iv. 13, 15, 16). Its earliest name was Dios-
polis, then Ehoas (Pliny, H. N. v. 29) ; being rebuilt and
adorned by Antiochus the Second, king of Syria, he called
it Laodicea, after his wife Laodice, by whom he was after-
wards poisoned. In Roman times it was a foremost city
among those of the second rank in Asia Minor ; * celeber-
rima urbs,' as Pliny calls it. Its commerce was consider-
able, being chiefly in the wools grown in the region round
about, which were celebrated for their richness of colour
and fineness of texture. The city suffered grievously in
the Mithridatic War, but presently recovered again; it
was overthrown by an earthquake in the reign of Nero
(a.d. 61); but restored by the efforts of its own citizens,
without any help sought from the Koman senate (Tacitus,
Anncd. xiv. 27).
200 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [ill. 1 4.
Some have supposed that the negligent Angel of the
Laodicean Church was that Archippus, for whom St. Paul,
writing to the Colossians, adds the message, ' And say to
Archippus, Take heed to the ministry which thou hast
received in the Lord, that thou fulfil it' (Col. iv. 17).
Bishop Lightfoot does not think it improbable. The
urgency of this monition certainly seems to imply that St.
Paul was not altogether satisfied with the manner in which
Archippus was then fulfilling the ' ministry,' whatever
that might be, which he had undertaken ; and affording
support to this conjecture is the fact that in the Apo-
stolical Constitutions (viii. 46), which with much of later
times also contain much of the very earliest, Archippus is
distinctly named as first bishop of Laodicea. Let him
have been the son of Philemon (Philem. 2), a principal
convert in the Colossian Church, whose son therefore
might very probably have been chosen to this dignity
and honour, more perhaps for his father's merits than his
own ; and it would be nothing strange to find him some
thirty years later holding his office still ; while it would
be only too consonant with the downward progress of
things, that he who began slackly, who so soon required
that ' Take heed ' of St. Paul, should in the lapse of years
have grown more and more negligent, till now he needed
and received this sharpest reproof from his Lord. Whether
the rebukes and threatenings contained in this Epistle
did their work or not, it is only for Him who reads all and
remembers all to know. But it is certain that the Church
of Laodicea was in somewhat later times, so far as man's
eye could see, in a flourishing condition. In numbers it
increased so much that its bishop obtained metropolitan
dignity; and a.d. 361 an important Church Council, that
in which the Canon of Scripture was finally settled, was
III. I4.] LAODICEA, REV. III. 1^-22. 201
held at Laodicea, and thence derives its name. But this
at best was only a transient revival. All has perished now.
He who removed the candlestick of Ephesus, has rejected
Laodicea out of his mouth. The fragments of aqueducts
and theatres spread over a vast extent of country tell of
the former magnificence of this city ; but of this once
famous Church nothing survives. Eecent travellers with
difficulty discovered one or two Christians in the poor
village which stands on the site occupied by Laodicea
of old,
' These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true
Witness."1 — ' The Amen ' (the word only here is used as a
proper name, or as a substantive, but compare Isai. lxv.
16) is He who can add a ' Verily, verily,' an ' Amen, amen,'
to every word which He utters ; as so frequently He does
— the double * Amen ' indeed only in the Gospel of St.
John (i. 51 ; iii. 3, 5, 1 1, and often ; cf. Num. v. 22 ; Neh.
viii. 6). He is ' the faithful and true Witness ' in that
He speaks what He knows, and testifies what He has
seen. The thought is a favourite and ever-recurring one
in the Gospel of St. John (iii. 11, 32, 33); but does not
appear in any other. It may be interesting here to call
to mind how the confessors of Lyons and Vienne, refer-
ring to these very words, put back from themselves the
name of ' witnesses ' (fidprvpss), when others would have
given it to them, saying that Christ was ' the faithful
and true Witness,' that this title was not theirs, but His
alone (Eusebius, H. E. v. 2 ).
Of the two epithets, the first, ttkttos, expresses his entire
trustworthiness. The word is employed in two very dif-
ferent senses in the New Testament as elsewhere, in an
active and a passive, — now as trusting or believing (John
xx. 27 ; Acts xiv. 1), now as trustworthy or to be believed
202 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [ill. 1 4.
(2 Tim. ii. 1 3 ; I Thess. v. 24 ; 1 John i. 9). Men may be
TnaroL in both senses, the active and the passive, as exer-
cising faith, and as being worthy to have faith exercised
in them ; God can be Triaros only in the latter. The
Arians found this epithet applied to Christ (Heb. iii. 2),
and, as though the word was and could be only used in
the former sense, in that of exercising faith upon some
higher object, itself of course a creaturely act, they drew
from the application of this epithet to the Son an argu-
ment against his divinity. I quote the clear and excellent
answer of Athanasius (Library of the Fathers, Treatises
against Arianism, p. 289) : ' Further, if the expression,
" Who was faithful," is a difficulty to them from the
thought that " faithful " is used of Him as of others, as^
if He exercises faith and so receives the reward of faith,
they must proceed to find fault with Moses, for saying,
" Grod faithful and true," and with St. Paul for writing,
" God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted
above that ye are able." But when the sacred writers spoke
thus, they were not thinking of Grod in a human way, but
they acknowledged two senses of the word " faithful " in
Scripture, first believing, then trustworthy, of which the
former belongs to man, the latter to God. Thus Abra-
ham was faithful because he believed God's word ; and
God faithful, for, as David says in the Psalm, " The Lord
is faithful in all his words," or is trustworthy, and cannot
lie. Again, " If any faithful woman have widows," she is
so called for her right faith ; but, " It is a faithful saying,"
because what He hath spoken hath a claim on our faith,
for it is true, and is not otherwise. Accordingly the words,
" Who is faithful to Him that made Him," imply no par-
allel with others, nor mean that by having faith He be-
came well-pleasing, but that, being Son of God the True,
III. 14.] LAODICEA, REV. III. I4~22. 203
He too is faithful, and ought to be believed in all He says
and does.'
It will be seen that the truthfulness or veracity of
Christ as a Witness is asserted in the tug-tos, not, as might
at first sight be assumed, in the ak^Otvos that follows, or
at least in it only as one quality among many. Christ is
a fidpTVs a\7)6ivos (not akwdrjs), in that He realized and
fulfilled in the highest sense all that belonged to a witness.
Three things are necessary thereunto. He must have
been avroTrr^s; must have seen with his own eyes
that which he professes to attest (Acts i. 21, 22). He
must be competent to relate and reproduce this informa-
tion for others. He must be willing faithfully and truth-
fully to do this. The meeting of these three conditions
in Christ, and not the presence of the last only, constitutes
Him a ' true Witness,'' or one in whom all the highest
qualities of a witness met.
* The beginning of the creation of God.'' — There are
two ways in which grammatically it would be possible to
understand dp^v here (see Pott, Etym. Forsch. vol. iii.
p. 744 ; Delitzsch On Proverbs, p. 141). The word might
imply that Christ was passively this 'beginning of the
creation of God,'' as the first and most excellent creature
of God's hands, his chef-d'oeuvre; thus Jacob addresses
Reuben as dpyjq tskvcov jaov (Gren. xlix. 3 ; cf. Deut. xxi.
17). Or the words might declare of Christ that He was
the active source, author, and, in this sense, ' beginning '
and beginner of all creation ; thus, in the Book of Proverbs,
Wisdom claims to be dp%r] 68wv rov ©soO, viii. 22 ; as in
the words of the Creed, ' by whom all things were made.'
But while both meanings are possible so long as the words
are merely considered by themselves, and without reference
to any other statements concerning Christ, the analogy of
204 EPISTLES TO THE SEYEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [ill. 1 4.
faith imperatively demands the adoption of the latter. The
Catholic Church has ever rejected the other as an Arian
gloss ; impossible to accept, because it would place this pas-
sage in contradiction with every passage in Scripture which
claims divine attributes, and not creaturely merely, for the
Son. To go no further than these seven Epistles, all the
titles which Christ claims for Himself in them are either
necessarily divine, or, at any rate, not inconsistent with
his divinity; and this must be so no less. He is not,
therefore, the ' principium principiatum,' but rather the
* principium pvincipiansf — -not He whom Grod created
the first, but He who was the fountain-source of all the
creation of God, by whom Grod created all things (John
i. 1-3; Col. i. 15, 18); even as throughout this Book
Christ appears as the Author of creation (v. 13). The
Arian s, as is well known, explained these words in the
same way as they explained Col. i. 15, which is, indeed,
the great parallel passage, as though apxn was ' the begun,'
and not ' the beginning ; ' and they brought Job xl. 19
into comparison. But for the use of apxn m the sense
and with the force which we here demand for it, as ' prin-
cipium,' not ' initium ' (though these Latin words do not
adequately reproduce the distinction), compare the Gospel
of Nicodemus,c. 25, in which Hades addresses Satan as 97
tov QavaTov apyj) kcu pi%a rf/s apbaprlas ; and further,
Dionysius the Areopagite (c. 15): 6 Sebs sa-rlv iravrcov
air La koX apxv > a:Qd again, Clement of Alexandria (Strom.
iv. 25) : 6 Ssbs 8s avap^os, ap%r) twv oXwv iravTSkris.
Add from Tertullian (Adv. Hermog. 19) : ' Principii voca-
bulum, quod est ap%^, non tantum ordinativum, sed et
potestativum capit principatum.' He is not merely the
first in order, but dynamically the beginning, the author.
These and innumerable other passages abundantly vindi-
III. 15.] LAODICEA, REV. III. I4~22. 205
cate for apxv that active sense which, as I have said, the
analogy of faith compels us to claim for it here. On the
words of St. Paul which exactly say over again of Christ
what He here says of Himself, irpwroroKos irda-r)^
KTccrscos (Col. i. 1 5), the reader is referred to the grand
discussion in Lightfoot's Colossians, in loco.
Ver. 15. ' / know thy ivorks, that thou art neither cold
nor hot : I would thou wert cold or hot.' — Ttsaros, from
£ea), ferveo, cf. Acts xviii. 25 ; Eom. xii. 11 {J^iovTes rS
irvsvfiarc), love to God being a divine heat, a divine fire
(Cant. viii. 6 ; Luke xxiv. 32). "O<f)s\ov} properly the se-
cond aorist of 6<J>sl\(o, but now grown into an adverbial
use ( = ' utinam '), has so far forgotten what at the first it
was, as to be employed promiscuously in all numbers and
all persons; cf. I Cor. iv. 8 ; 2 Cor. xi. 1. It governs an
indicative, not an optative, here (rjs, not etrjs, is the right
reading, and ituasti should replace iwerV in our Version),
inasmuch as the Lord is not desiring that something even
now might be, but only that something might have been.
In form a wish, it is in reality a regret.
Shall we take this ' / would thou ivert cold or hot,'
merely as the expression of a holy impatience at the half-
and-half position of this Laodicean Angel ; without push-
ing the matter further, or attempting to explain to our-
selves how the Lord should have put coldness as one of
two alternatives to be desired ; as though He had said, ' I
would thou wouldst take one side or other, be avowedly
with me, or avowedly against me, ranged under my banner,
or under that of my enemies, that so I might understand
how to deal with thee ' ? Hardly so. This impatience,
looked at more closely, would not deserve to be called
holy. It is the impatience of sinful man, not of the Son
of God ; to whom indecision between good and evil must
206 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [ill. 1 5.
be preferable to decision for evil. The state of lukewarm-
ness must be in itself worse than even that of coldness,
before the Lord could thus deliberately desire the latter
as a preferable alternative. But how ? for this certainly
demands an explanation. Lukewarmness is greatly inferior
to heat, but seems preferable to absolute coldness in the
things of God. To have only half a heart for these
things is bad ; but wherein is it better to have no heart
at all ? How shall we then understand this exclamation,
* i" would thou ivert cold or hot ' ? Best, I think, in
this way, namely, by regarding the ' cold ' here as one
hitherto untouched by the powers of grace. There is
always hope of such an one, that, when he does come
under those powers, he may become a zealous and earnest
Christian. He is not one on whom the grand experiment
of the Gospel has been tried and has failed. But the
' lukeivarm ' is one who has tasted of the good gift and of
the powers of the world to come, who has been a subject
of Divine grace, but in whom that grace has failed to
kindle more than the feeblest spark. The publicans and
harlots were ' cold,'' the Apostles ' hot.' The Scribes and
Pharisees, such among them as that Simon in whose house
the Lord sat and spake the parable of the fifty and the
five hundred pence (Luke vii. 36-47), they were * luke-
warm.' It was from among the ' cold,' and not the
1 lukeivarm,' that He drew recruits ; from among them
came forward the candidates for discipleship and apostle-
ship and the crown of life, Matthew, and Zacchaeus, and
the Magdalene, and the other woman that had been a
sinner (if indeed another), and all those, the publicans
and harlots, that entered into the kingdom of heaven,
while the Scribes and Pharisees continued without ; and
above all Paul the Apostle, who, having been a persecutor
III. 15.] LAODICEA, REV. III. I4-22. 207
and injurious, was changed into a preacher of that faith
which he persecuted before. That woman * which was a
sinner,' for example, having been ' cold,' passed from that
coldness to the fervency of a divine heat, at which there is
little likelihood that the ' lukeiuarm ' Simon ever arrived
(Luke vii. 47; Matt. xxi. 28-31).
It is thus that Gregory the Great explains these words
(Reg. Past. iii. 34) : * Qui enim adhuc in peccatis est,
conversionis fiduciam non amittit. Qui vero post conver-
sionem tepuit, et spem, quae esse potuit de peccatore, sub-
traxit. Aut calidus ergo quisque esse, aut frigidus quas-
ritur, ne tepidus evomatur, ut videlicet aut necdum con-
versus, adhuc de se spem conversionis prsebeat, aut jam
con versus in virtutibus inardescat.' Compare Origen (Z)e
Princip. iii. 4) : ' Forte utilius videatur obtineri animam
a carne, quam residere in suis propriis voluntatibus.
Namque quoniam nee calida dicitur esse, nee frigida, sed
in medio quodam tepore perdurans, tardam et satis diffi-
cilem conversionem poterit invenire. Si vero carni ad-
hasreat, ex his ipsis interdum malis quae ex carnis vitiis
patitur, satiata aliquando et repleta, velut gravissimis
oneribus luxurise ac libidinis fatigata, facilius et velocius
converti a materialibus sordibus ad caalestium desiderium
et spiritualem gratiam potest.' Jeremy Taylor, too, in
the second of his sermons, Of Luhewarmness and Zeal,
discusses this point, namely, why the Lord preferred
either ' hot ' or ' cold ' to * lukewarm,'' at considerable
length ; and urges well that it is the ' lukewarm,'' not as a
transitional, but as a final state, which is thus the object
of the Lord's abhorrence : ' In feasts or sacrifices the an-
cients did use apponere frigidam or calidam ; sometimes
they drank hot drink, sometimes they poured cold upon
their gravies or in their wines, but no services of tables or
J
208 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [ill. 1 6.
altars were ever with lukewarm. God hates it worse than
stark cold; which expression is the more considerable,
because in natural and superinduced progressions from
extreme to extreme, we must necessarily pass through the
midst ; and therefore it is certain a lukewarm religion is
better than none at all, as being the doing some parts of
the work designed, and nearer to perfection than the
utmost distance could be ; and yet that God hates it more,
must mean, that there is some appendant evil in this state
which is not in the other, and that accidentally it is much
worse : and so it is, if we rightly understand it ; that is, if
we consider it not as a being in, or passing through, the
middle way, but as a state and a period of religion. If it
be in motion, a lukewarm religion is pleasing to God; for
God hates it not for its imperfection, and its natural
measures of proceeding ; but if it stands still and rests
there, it is a state against the designs and against the
perfection of God : and it hath in it these evils.'
I must not leave these words without observing that
there is another way of explaining this, ' 7" ivould thou
wert cold or hot,'' which has found favour with some in
modern times. Urging that food, when either cold or hot,
is pleasant to the taste, and only when tepid unwelcome,
they make both the ' cold ' and the * hot ' to express spiri-
tual conditions absolutely acceptable in themselves, the
only tertium comjparationis being the nausea created by
the tepid, and they affirm that nothing further has a right
here to be pressed. But assuredly there is much more in
these words than this.
Ver. 1 6. ' So then because thou art lukewarm, and
neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.' —
The land of Canaan is said to have spued out its former
inhabitants for their abominable doings ; the children of
III. 17.] LAODICEA, REV. III. 1^.-22. 209
Israel being warned that they commit not the same, lest
in like manner it spue out them (Lev. xviii. 28 ; xx. 22).
But the threatening here is more terrible still. It is
nothing less than to be spued out of the mouth of Christ,
to be rejected as with moral loathing and disgust, by
Him ; to exchange the greatest possible nearness to Him /
for the remotest distance. At the same time, in the
original the language is not quite so severe as in our
Version ; the threat does not present itself as one about
to be put into immediate execution. The long-suffering
of Christ has not been all exhausted : fisWco as ifisacu, ' I
am about,' or ' I have it in my mind, to spue thee out of
my mouth,' as the Vulgate seeks to express it, ' incipiam
te evomere ; ' that is, * unless thou so takest to heart this
threat that I shall never need to execute this threat '
(Jon. iii. 10; 1 Kin. xxi. 29). But if executed, it implies
nothing less than absolute rejection, being equivalent to '
that ' / will remove thy candlestick out of his place ' (ii.
5), uttered against the Ephesian Angel. Not very different
is the tropical use of tttvziv, Karainvsiv, and in Latin of
' respuere,' ' conspuere,' as = c repudiare,' ' abhorrere ab
aliqua re.' XXtapos, aptly rendered in our Version ' luke-
warm,' is a word with which we are familiar enough in
Homer ; but it there appears in an old Ionic subform as
Xcapos {II. ix. 477 ; Od. v. 268).
Ver. 17. 'Because thou say est, I am rich, and in-
creased tvith goods (or as it is in the R. V., ' and have
gotten riches '), and have need of nothing ; and knowest
not that thou, art ivretched, and miserable, and poor,
and blind, and naked.'' — There is a question whether this
verse coheres the most closely with what goes before, or
what follows after, — that is, whether Christ threatens to
reject him from his mouth, because he says, ' 1 am rich,
P
210 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [ill. 1J .
and increased with goods, and have need of nothing ; '
or whether, because he says he is all this, therefore Christ
counsels him to buy of Him what will make him rich
indeed (ver. 18). Our Translators regard the latter con-
nexion as the right one ; and, by the punctuation which
they have adopted, join this verse with that which follows
after it, not with that which went before it. I doubt
whether in this they have correctly done. I should prefer
to place a colon at the end of ver. 16, and a full-stop at
that of ver. 17, instead of the reverse, which has been
their course. — These riches and other goods in which the
Laodicean Church and Angel gloried we must understand
as spiritual riches, in which they fondly imagined they
abounded. Some interpreters take it in another sense,
that they boasted of their worldly prosperity, their flou-
rishing outward condition, and found in this a sign and
token of Grod's favour towards them. But assuredly this
is a mistake. It is in the sphere of spiritual things that
the Lord is moving ; and this language in this applica-
tion is justified by numerous passages in Scripture : as by
Luke xii. 21 ; I Cor. i. 5 ; 2 Cor. viii. 9; above all, by
two passages of holy irony, 1 Cor. iv. 8 and Hos. xii. 8 ;
both standing in very closest connexion with this ; I can
indeed hardly doubt that there is intended a reference to
the latter of these in the words of our Lord. (The Laodi-
cean Angel, and the Church which he was drawing into
the same ruin with himself, were walking in a vain show
and imagination of their own righteousness, their own
advances in spiritual insight and knowledge, j That this
may go hand in hand with the most miserable lack of all
real grace, all true and solid advances in goodness, we
have a notable example in the Pharisee of our Lord's para-
ble (Luke xviii. II, 12 ; cf. xvi. 15 ; I Cor. xiii. 1) ; and
III. 17.] LA0DICEA, REV. III. I4~-22. 211
so it was here. Rightly Richard of St. Victor : * Dieis
quod sum dives et locupletatus, sive videlicet per scientiae
cognitionem, sive per Scripturae prsedicationem, sive per
secularis eloquential nitorem, sive per sacramentorum
administrationem, sive per pontificalis apicis dignitatem,
sive per vulgi laud em inanem.'
Such was their estimate of themselves ; but now fol-
lows the terrible reality, namely, Christ's estimate of
them : ' And knoivest not that thou art ivretched, and
miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.' Here, as
so often, our Version, to its loss, has taken no note of the
article which, going before the two first adjectives, raises
them to the dignity of substantives, while the three
which follow are added as qualifying adjectives. An exact
parallel, and, singularly enough, much more than a mere
verbal parallel, occurs Isai. xlvii. 8 (LXX) : vvv Ss aicove
ravra, Tpvcpspd, rj /cadrj/jbevr], rj ttsttolOvIcl, rj \syovcra iv
fcapSla avrrjs, 'E^yo) sifii, teal ovk sariv srspa, k.t.X. Best
therefore to translate, ' And hnoivest not that thou art the
wretched and the miserable one, and poor, and blind,
and naked.' Ta\at7r(opos, l ivretched,' in the New Testa-
ment occurs only here and Rom. vii. 24 : it is commonly
derived by the grammarians from rkda), and iroypos in the '
sense of grief, but thought now to be a poetical recasting
of TaXaTTsLpios, in which case we should find irscpd, a
sharp piercing point, in the latter syllables. 'TZXsetvos, a
later form of the word whose Attic form is sXstvos (Lobeck,
Phrynichus, p. 87), occurs only here and 1 Cor. xv. 19;
it sets him forth as an object of extremest pity (iXeovs
a%ios, Suidas), as in certain peril of eternal death, if he
should remain what he was. The charge of blindness
would seem to imply that the Laodicean Church boasted
of spiritual insight. Like some before them, being blind
p 2
212 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [ill. 1 8.
they yet said, ' We see ' (John ix. 41). This blindness, of
course, was not absolute and complete ; else the ' eye-
salve ' which the Lord presently bids them to obtain of
Him would have profited little. They were ixvanru^ovrss,
blinking, as St. Peter describes some, he too joining
rv(f)\6s and fivanrd^oov (2 Pet. i. 9).
Ver. 18. '/ counsel thee to buy of Me gold tried in
the fire, that thou may est be rich ; and white raiment, that
thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy naked-
ness do not appear, and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve,
that thou mayest see.' — Marckius : ' Triplici malo pauper-
tatis, nuditatis, et csecitatis, triplex opponitur merx, aurum
igne coctum, vestimenta alba, et collyrium.' There is a
slight touch of irony, but the irony of divine love, in the
words. CHe who might have commanded, prefers rather
V^ to counsel ; He who might have spoken as from heaven,
conforms Himself, so far as the outward form of his words
reaches, to the language of earth. \ To the merchants and
factors of this wealthy mercantile city He addresses Him-
self in their own dialect. Laodicea, on the great high
road of Oriental commerce, was a city of extensive money
transactions ; so that Cicero, journeying to or from his pro-
vince, proposes to take up money there {Epp. ad Div. ii.
17 ; iii. 5). Christ here invites to dealings with Himself.
He has gold of so fine a standard that none will reject it.
( The wools of Laodicea, of a raven blackness, were famous
throughout the world. He has raiment of dazzling_white
for as many as will receive it at his bands. There were
ointments for which many of the Asiatic cities, perhaps
Laodicea among the number, were famous; but He, as
He will presently announce, has eyesalve more precious
than them all.\ Would it not be wise to transact their
chief business with Him ? Thus Perkins {Exposition upon
III. 1 8.] LAODICEA, REV. III. \\~22. 213
Rev. i. ii. iii., Works, vol. iii. p. 363) : ' Christ saith, " 1
counsel thee to buy of Me ; " where He alludeth to the out-
ward state of this city, for it was rich, and also given to
much traffic, as histories record, and therefore He speaks
to them in their own kind, as if He should say, Ye are a
people exercised in much traffic, and delighted with no-
thing more than buying and selling. Well, I have wares
that will serve your turn, as gold, garments, and oil ; there-
fore come and buy of Me.'
We must not fail to put an emphasis on that ' of Me.''
' In Me,' Christ would say, * are hidden all the treasures
of wisdom and knowledge.' His Apostle once already had
reminded the Colossians, neighbours of the Laodiceans,
that this was so; and that there was no growth for
the Church, or for any member of the Church, except
through holding the Head (Col. ii. 3, 19) ; that all self-
chosen ways of will-worship might have a show of wisdom,
but puffed up, and did not build up(ii. 10-15) 5 and out
of the deep anxiety which he evidently felt for both these
sister Churches alike (ii. 1), he had desired that the
Epistle to the Colossians should be read also in the Church
of the Laodiceans (iv. 16). But they of Laodicea had not
learned their lesson. St. Paul's ' great conflict ' for them
had been well nigh in vain ; and now the Lord, repeating
his servant's lesson, gathers up into a single point, con-
centrates in that single phrase, ' buy of Me,' the whole
lesson of the Epistle to the Colossians.
The invitation to ' buy ' of Him, who is so much more
frequently set forth as making a free gift of all which He
inrparts to men (Kom. vi. 23; Rev. xxii. 17), is drawn
from Isai. Iv. I, with which we may compare Prov. iii. 14 ;
xxiii. 23 ; Matt. xiii. 44, 46. The price which they should
pay was this, the renunciation of all vain reliance on their
214 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [ill. 1 8.
own righteousness and wisdom ; the price which in an-
other Epistle St. Paul declared he had so gladly paid, that
so he might himself win Christ (Phil. iii. 7, 8); the airo-
rda-asa-dat iracri, which the Lord long before had declared
to be the necessary condition of his discipleship (Luke xiv.
33). This is the price, contemplated rather in its negative
aspect ; on its positive side it is the earnest striving after,
and longing for, the gift, the reaching out after it, the
opening of the mouth wide that He may fill it. Vitringa :
' Quae beneficia Dominus vult ut emant, h. e. secundum
conditiones foederis gratise pro iis expendant pretium ab-
negationis sui ipsius et mundanarum cupiditatum ; quod
hie non habet rationem meriti, sed tamen pretii, quia in
regeneratione homo aliis quibusdam rebus sibi hactenus
caris renunciat, ut pretioso dono justitias Christi potiatur.'
What does the Lord counsel this Angel that he shall
* buy ; ' what precious things name, the which when he has
made his own, he shall be no longer 'poor, and blind, and
naked'? They are three. And first, as he is 'poor'' —
' gold tried in the fire, that thou, mayest be rich' A
comparison with 1 Pet. i. 7 (cf. Zech. xiii. 9 ; Mai. iii. 3 ;
Prov. xvii. 3 ; Jam. i. 3) teaches us that by this ' gold ' we
must understand faith ; for faith being a gift of God,
must therefore be bought of Christ (Luke xvii. 5 ; cf. Ps.
lxxii. 15, according to the right translation) ; and such faith
as would stand the' test, would endure in the furnace of
affliction, in the "irvpaxris ( I Pet. iv. 12); Vitringa: 'Veraet
solida fides, quae sustinere possit afflictiones.' Then should
he be rich indeed ; this is the true 7r\ovrl^£iv(i Cor. i. 5),
better than that spoken of in the book of Job (xxii. 23,
24) ; though that, as Grod's gift, might be good ; then
should he be indeed one sis ®ebv ttXovtcov (Luke xii. 2l)T
rich toward God, not walking, as now, in a vain imagina-
III. 1 8.] LAODICEA, REV. III. I4.-22. 215
tion of wealth which he had not. — UsirvpoipbEvov ek irvpos
= 8o/ci/j,a%6fJLSPOv Sea irvpos, I Pet. i. 7 (cf. Zech. xiii. 9 ;
Ps. lxv. 10 ; Prov. x. 20; LXX) ; for, in the words of the
Latin poet (Ovid, Fast. iv. 785) :
' Omnia purgat edax ignis vitiumque ruetallis
Excoquit.'
The Latin language, which has dropped the noun sub-
stantive corresponding to the Greek irup and to our 'fire,'
taking ' ignis ' instead, has yet 'purus,' closely connected
with these, and attesting to a sense of the cleansing, purify-
ing energy of fire. Compare Pott, Etym. Forsch. vol. ii.
pt. ii. p. 1 102.
But secondly, as he is * naked,' ' Buy of Me,' says the
Lord, ' ivhite raiment, that thou may est be clothed, and that
the shame of thy nakedness do not appear.' Instead of
the al<Tyyvr\ here, we have in the parallel passage, xvi. 15,
aa'xrj puoa-vvT] (cf. Ezek. xvi. 8, LXX), translated also
' shame,' but better, ' unseemliness ' or ' uncomeliness ; '
cf. ra aa'xfiiiova, I Cor. xii. 23. ' Do not appear' is too
weak a rendering of pur/ cf)avspco0fj, which translate rather,
' be not made manifest ; ' so the E.Y., cpavspovaOai ex-
pressing constantly the manifestations or revelations which
(rod makes of the hidden things of men (John iii. 2 1 ;
I Cor. iv. 5 ; 2 Cor. v. 1 1 ; Eph. v. 13) ; either now, or at
that last day when every guest that has not on a wedding
garment is at the same instant discovered and cast out
(Matt. xxii. II-13 ; cf. Isai. xlvii. 3 ; ava/caXvcpOijcrsTao rj
alcr%vvi] aov ; Lam. i. 8). As stripping, and laying bare
the nakedness, is a frequent method of putting to open
shame (cf. 2 Sam. x. 4; Isai. xx. 4; Ezek. xvi. U, 39;
xxiii. 26, 29; Hos. ii. 3, 9; iii. 5 ; Mic. i. 8, 11 ; Nah. iii.
5; Eev. xvi. 15; xvii. 16), so the clothing with comely
apparel those unclothed or ill-clothed before, of imparting
honour; cf. Gen. xli. 42; Esth. vi. 7-11 ; Dan. v. 29;
216 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHUKCHES IN ASIA. [ill. 1 8.
Luke xv. 22 ; Zech. iii. 3-5 ; Ezek. xvi. 10-13 ; and above
all, Gren. iii. 7, 21, where it is shown that (rod, and not
himself, is the true coverer and concealer of the nakedness
of man ; for while he can discover his own shame, it is
Grod only who can cover it. This, ' the shame of the naked-
ness ' of him who, professing Christ, has not put on Christ,
may be, and often is, revealed in the present time ; it
must be revealed in the last day (Matt. xxii. 1 1— 13 ; Dan.
xii. 2 ; 2 Cor. v. 10) ; looking on to which revelation, and
that ' everlasting contempt' which shall then be the portion
of so many, the Psalmist exclaims, ' Blessed is the man
whose sin is covered'' (Ps.xxxii. 1); and those interpreters
seem to me to give too narrow a range of meaning to this
' white raiment] who limit it to the graces of the Chris-
tian life, and the putting on, in this sense, of the Lord
Jesus Christ (Col. iii. 10-14). We should understand by it
not merely the righteousness of Christ imparted, but also
that righteousness imputed ; for both are needful, the one
as needful as the other, if the shame of our nakedness is
not to appear ; nor can they be separated- the one from
the other (Ezek. xxxvi. 25-27) ; it is the being ' found in
Him ' (Phil. iii. 9), with all which this implies and in-
volves ' (cf. Job xxix, 14; Isai. lxi. 10). SoVitringa:
' Vestimenta alba, h.e.justitiam Christi, vera fide acceptam,
quae nos obtegat qua parte nudi, id est, expositi sumus
ardenti irse Dei ; turn quoque habitus Christianarum virtu-
tum, quae faciunt ut quis cum fiducia. absque pudore coram
Deo et Sanctis ausit comparere, inter quas eminent caritas,
simplicitas, humilitas et zelus.'
And then lastly — ' anoint thine eyes ivith eyesalve,
that thou mayest see.'' The eye for which this salve is
needed is, of course, the spiritual eye, that eye of the con-
science by which spiritual things are discerned and appre-
III. 1 8.] LAODICEA, EEV. III. 1^.-22. 217
ciated ; which eye may be sound or single {aifkovs, Matt,
vi. 22), or contrariwise may be evil (irovTipos, Matt. vi. 23 ;
cf. 1 John ii. 1 1 ) ; and according as it is one or the other, as
it is enlightened (Ephes. i. 18) or darkened (Zech. xi. 17),
the man will see himself as he truly is, or see nothing as
he ought to see it. The beginning of all true amendment
is to see ourselves as indeed we are, in our misery, our
guilt, our shame ; and the ability to do this is the first
consequence of the anointing with that eyesalve which the
Lord here invites this Angel to purchase of Him. The
Spirit convinces of sin, and by this ' eyesalve ' we must un-
derstand the illuminating grace of the Holy Ghost, which
at once shows to us Gfod, and in (rod and in his light
ourselves. And if the eyesalves of antiquity commonly
caused the eye to smart on their first application (Tob. xi.
8, 12), * mordacia collyria,' ' acre collyrium,' as Augustine
therefore calls them (In Joh. Tract, xviii. § 1 1 ; Conf.
vii. 8), Spifiv KoXXvptov, as the Apostolic Constitutions,
/? 41, this will only set forth the more fitly to us the
wholesome pain and medicinal smart which belong to the
spiritual eyesalve as well ; making for us discoveries so
painful as it does, causing us to see in ourselves a naked-
ness and poverty which had been wholly concealed from
us before ; while yet only through the seeing and confess-
ing of this can that poverty be ever exchanged for riches,
or that nakedness for ' durable clothing.'
It has been already remarked, and assuredly it is
very well worthy of notice, that the two Churches which
spiritually have sunk the lowest, that, namely, of Sardis
and this of Laodicea, are also the only two in which there
are no traces either of adversaries from without, or of
hinderers to the truth from within. Of the absence of
heathen adversaries there was occasion to speak there ;
218 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [ill. 1 8.
but more noticeable still is the fact that neither there nor
here are there Nicolaitans, as at Ephesus, nor Balaamites,
as at Pergamum, nor Jezebelites, as at Thyatira, nor those
who say they are Jews and are not, as at Smyrna and
Philadelphia. We have notice of none of these seeking
to seduce Christ's servants, and giving them no choice
but earnestly to contend for the truth, if they would not
be robbed of it altogether. From the lukewarmness and
faintness of these Churches, from the indifference and
lethargy into which they, who had no truth to secure or
defend from gainsayers, were sunk, we may gather a preg-
nant hint of all which the Church owes to the heresies
and heretics that, one after another, have disturbed her
repose. Owing to them no thanks for what she has
gained by them, the gains themselves have not the less
been immense ; even as St. Paul long before declared that
she could not do without them (i Cor. x. 19). There are
remarkable acknowledgments to this same effect made in
the heat of the great conflicts of early times by more
than one of the Fathers ; as by Augustine, Be Gen.
con. Manicli. i. 1, and often. Tertullian, indeed, had
anticipated him here (see Be Prcesc. Hceret. i. 4) ; and
Origen (Horn. 9 in Num.). Contending against these
gainsayers, she has learned not merely to define more pre-
cisely, but to grasp more firmly, and to prize more dearly,
that truth of which they would fain have deprived her.
What would the Church of the second century have been,
if she had never learned her strength, and the treasures
of wisdom and knowledge which she had in Christ Jesus, in
the course of that tremendous conflict with the Gnostics
which through all that century she sustained ? Would the
Church herself have ever been the true Gnostic, except for
these false ones ? Again, what an education and disci-
III. 19.] LAODICEA, EEV. III. I4~22. 219
pline for her were the fast-succeeding conflicts, Sabellian,
Arian, Nestorian, Monophysite, Monothelite, of the cen-
turies which followed ; and not an intellectual education
only, but 'as iron sharpeneth iron,' so the zeal of the
adversaries of the truth served often to excite the zeal
and love, which might else have abated, of her friends.
Of Augustine himself Luther, though with some exaggera-
tion, has said, that his controversy with the Pelagians
' first made a man of him ' {Table Talk, c. 29). Assuredly
it was not good for the Sardian and Laodicean Churches
to be without this necessity of doing earnest battle for
the truth. Perhaps they gloried in their freedom from
conflicts which were agitating, disquieting, and shaking
it may have been Churches around them. But we
may be bold to say that in a world of imperfections like
ours, it argued no healthy spiritual life that there were
none there to call the truth into question and debate.
Misgrowths are at any rate groivths ; and if there is a
spiritual condition which is above errors (though hardly to
be found in this present world), so also there is one which
is beneath them ; when all in a Church is dead ' as the
fat weed that rots on Lethe's wharf,' when there is not
interest enough in theology, not care enough to know
anything certain about Gfod, or about man's relation to
God, even to generate a heresy. As we read the history
of the Church, we may perhaps find some consolation in
considerations such as these. Assuredly in reading many
a page in that history we need the strongest consolations
which anywhere we can find.
Ver. 19. ' As many as I love I rebuke and chasten; be
zealous therefore, and repent.' — Observe the use of (friXstv
here, a tenderer word than a<yairav would have been, which
He employs in his address to Philadelphia (iii. 9). He
220 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHUECHES IN ASIA. [ill. 1 9.
has wounded sharply, even as He meant to do ; but will
fain before He has done pour some soothing oil into the
wounds which He has inflicted. Bengel says well : ' Phila-
delphiensem q^diri^re, Laodicensem <jnXei. Illud judicio,
hoc gratia ; ' and compare my Synonyms of the New Tes-
tament, § 12. He, the great Master-builder, squares and
polishes with many strokes of the chisel and the hammer
the stones which shall find a place at last in the walls of the
heavenly Jerusalem (cf. Prov. iii. 12 ; xiii. 24; xxvii. 6 ;
Ezek. xx. 37 ; Job v. 17; Acts xiv. 22 ; I Cor. xi. 32 ;
Heb. xii. 6 ; 2 Chron. xxxiii. 11-13 ; Ps. xciv. 12 ; Ecclus.
xxx. 1 ; Wisd. iii. 4-6) ; on which Gregory the Great,
with allusion to 1 Kin. vi. 7, has very beautifully said
(Reg. Past. iii. 12): ' Hinc est enim quod lapides extra
tunsi sunt, ut in constructione templi Domini absque
mallei sonitu ponerentur ; quia videlicet nunc foris per
flagella tundimur, ut intus in templum Dei postmodum
sine discipline percussione disponamur, quatenus quidquid
in nobis est superfluum modo percussio resecet, et tunc sola
nos in sedificio concordia caritatis liget.' And this is a
rule which endures no exception. In that ' as many '
(oaovs) here lies the same emphasis as in the ' every son '
of Heb. xii. 6. All whom He loves are included in the
same discipline of correction, are made sooner or later to
be able to say, ' Thy loving correction shall make me great '
(Ps. xviii. 35). Of all it is true that, if not scourged,
they are not sons (Heb. xii. 8 ; 2 Mace. vi. 12-16) ; if not
rebuked and chastened, they are not loved. Others may
be let alone (Ps. lxxiii. 5, 12 ; Isai. i. 5) ; but not they.
Not a few, if their prosperity lasts a little longer than that
of others, fancy that they shall be exceptions to this rule.
But it never proves so. They can only be excepted from
the discipline through being excepted from the sonship ; as
III. 19.] LAODICEA, REV. III. I4-22. 221
Augustine excellently well (Serm. xlvi. § 1 1) : * Flagellat,
inquit, omnem filium quern recipit. Et tu forte exceptus
eris ? Si exceptus a passione flagellorum, exceptus a
numero filiorum;' and again (Enarr. in Ps. xxxii. 11):
' Vis audire quam omnem ? Etiam Unicus sine peccato, non
tamen sine flagello.' Many other beautiful passages to
the same effect may be found in his writings ; thus, Enarr.
in Ps. xxxi. n ; xciii. 14; cxiv. 5. Jerome, too, very
profoundly says (in Ezek. 9) : ' Magna? interdum felicitatis
est, ad prassens misericordiam non mereri.'
^Kksj^siv and iraihsvetv are often found together, as
here; thus Ecclus. xviii. 13 ; Ps. cxl. 5; so too iraihsla
and sXsy^os, Prov. vi. 23 ; cf. Heb. xii. 5 ; but they are
very capable of being distinguished. ^Xej^slv is more
than e7ri,Tifu,av, with which it is often joined (see my
Synonyms of the New Testament, § 4 ; and J. H. H.
Schmidt, Synonymik d. Griech. Sprache, p. 136 sqq.
It is so to rebuke that the person rebuked is brought to
the acknowledgment of his fault, is convinced, as David
was when rebuked by Nathan (2 Sam. xii. 13); for, in the
words of Aristotle (Rhet. ad Alex. 13), sXsj^os sari fisv
0 firj Svvarbv dWcos zyziv, oOOC ovrcos (*)$ rjfisis \syofiev :
and this rebuking, or convincing of sin, is eminently the
work and office of the Holy Ghost (John xvi. 8 ; cf. iii.
20; Ephes. v. 13). See upon this subject an admirable
note by Archdeacon Hare, Mission of the Comforter, vol.
ii. p. 528. UatBsvsiv, being in classical Greek to instruct,
to educate, is in sacred Greek to instruct or educate by
means of correction, through the severe discipline of love
(iracSsvsLV and fiaaTtyovv are joined together, Heb. xii. 6),
' per molestias erudire ' (Lev. xxvi. 18; 1 Kin. xii. 1 1 ;
Ps. xxxvii. 1); as Augustine {Enarr. in Ps. cxviii. 66),
tracing the difference between its sacred and profane uses,
222 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [ill. 20.
explains it. As David had found his sXsy^os when he
exclaimed, ' I have sinned against the Lord ' (2 Sam. xii.
13), so his TraiSsia was announced to him in the words
which followed : ' The child also that is born unto thee
shall surely die ' (ver. 14) — which passage is alone suffi-
cient to refute those who affirm that we have in this
iXsy^co /cal nraiheva) here a varspov irporspov. Not so. It
will indeed continually happen that the same dealing of
God with men is at once sXzy%os and TraiSsia, but only
iraiZsla through having been e\sy%os first ; which there-
fore rightly precedes. Brightman : ' Observandum est
ilium arguere et castigare ; id est, convincere et plectere.
Simul enim sunt haec duo conjungenda. Inutilis est
animadversio, ubi verba silent, verbera sseviunt. Unde
recte vocatur castigatio, disciplina qua delinquens una
dolet et discit.' — For fy'jXwcrov of the received text, read
rather foXsve, from ^rjXsvco, another form of t,rfKooo. This
word, through ^rfkos connected with %e<o and thus with
%e<ttos (ver. 15), is chosen as the word of exhortation,
with special reference to the liikewarmness which the
Lord so indignantly saw in the Laodicean Church. It
was warmth^ heat, fervency, which He required there.
St. Paul uses ^rjXovv in a good sense, Gal. iv. 18 ; 1 Cor.
xii. 31 ; xiv. I ; which passages are the best parallels to
its employment here.
Ver. 20. ' Behold, 1 stand at the door and knock' —
The Hellenistic /cpoveiv is here, as always in the New
Testament, the word used to describe this knocking at the
door (Luke xii. 36; xiii. 25 ; Acts. xii. 13, 16). The Greek
purists preferred koittsiv ; yet see Lobeck, Phrynichus,
p. 177. These gracious words declare the long-suffering
of Christ, as He waits for the conversion of sinners (1 Pet.
iii. 20) ; and not alone the long-suffering which waits,
III. 20.] LAODICEA, REV. III. I4~22. 223
but the love which seeks to bring that conversion about,
which ' knocks.'' He at whose door we ought to stand, for
He is the Door (John x. 7), who, as such, has bidden us
to knock (Matt. vii. 7 ; Luke xi. 9), is content that the
whole relation between Him and us should be reversed,
and instead of our standing at his door, condescends Him-
self to stand at ours, — OvpavKslv, as the Greeks called
this waiting and watching at the door of the beloved.
Very beautiful on the matter of this infinite condescension
on his part are the words of Nicolaus Cabasilas, a Greek
mystic of the fourteenth century : 6 irspl tovs avOpdairovs
spas tov %sov eksvuxtsv- ov yap Kara ^copav pbkvcov ko\s2
irpos savTov, bv sfyikrjcre BovXov, aXX? avrbs fyrsl KarsXdcov,
kcli irpos Tiqv Karaywyrjv atpiKvsirat tov irsvrjTOs 6 ttXovtwv,
/cal irpoo-sXdoiv St? savrov p,r)vvst tov ttoOov, teal ^tjtsc to
icrov, real aira^iovvTos ovk afylcrTaTai, /cal irpbs tt)v vj3puv ov
Bvcryspaivsi, ical BtoiKopbSvos irpocrsBpsvei Tats Ovpats, /cal
Xva tov spwvTa Bsi^rj, TcavTa 7tolsi, /cal bBwoipusvos (pspsc
Kal airoOvrjcncSL.
' If any man hear ray voice, and open the door, I will
come in to him, and will sup with him, and lie with Me?
— Christ does not knock only ; He also speaks ; makes his
* voice ' to be heard — a more precious benefit still ! It is
true, indeed, that we cannot in our interpretation draw
any strict line of distinction between Christ knocking and
Christ speaking. Both represent his dealings of infinite
love with souls, for the winning them to receive Him ; yet
at the same time, considering that in this natural world a
knock may be any one's, and on any errand, while the
voice accompanying that knock would at once designate
who it was that stood without, and with what intention
(Acts xii. 13, 14), we have a right, so far as we may ven-
ture to distinguish between the two, to see in the voice
224 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHUKCHES IN ASIA. [ill. 20.
the more inward appeal, the closer dealing of Christ with
the soul, speaking directly by his Spirit to the spirit of the
man ; in the knocking those more outward gracious deal-
ings, of sorrow and joy, of sickness and health, and the
like, which He sends, and sending uses for the bringing of
his elect, in one way or another, by smooth paths or by
rough, to Himself. The ' voice ' very often mil interpret
and make intelligible the purpose of the * knock.''
It is true that the one and the other mayalike remain
unheard and unheeded. It is in the power of every man
to close his ear to them ; therefore the hypothetical form
which this gracious promise takes : ' if any man hear my
voice, and open the door.' There is no gratia irresisti-
bilis here. It is the man himself who must open the door.
Christ indeed knocks, claims admittance as to his own ;
so lifts up his voice that it may be heard, in one sense
must be heard, by him ; but He does not break open the
door, or force an entrance by violence. There is a sense
in which every man is lord of the house of his own heart ;
it is his fortress ; he must open the gates of it, and unless
h e does so, Christ cannot enter. And, as a necessary com-
plement of this power to open, there belongs also to man
the mournful prerogative and privilege of refusing to open :
he may keep the door shut, even to the end. He may
thus continue to the last blindly at strife with his own
blessedness ; a miserable conqueror, who conquers to his
own everlasting loss and defeat.
At the same time, these words of Christ, decisive testi-
mony as they yield against that scheme of irresistible grace
which would turn men into mere machines, and take away
all moral value from the victories which Christ obtains
over the sullenness, the pride, the obstinacy, the rebellion
of men, must not be pushed, as some have pushed them,
III. 20.] LAODICEA, KEV. III. I4~22. 225
in the other direction, into Pelagian error and excess.
This is done when the words are taken to affirm that men
can open the door of their heart when they will, as though
repentance was not itself a gift of the exalted Saviour
(Acts v. 31) ; when it is forgotten that the words of the
Holy Grhost, Acts xvi. 14, ' whose heart the Lord opened,'
must stand true as well as these. Men can only open
when Christ knocks ; and they would have no desire at all
to open unless He knocked, and unless, together with the
external knocking of the Word, or of sorrow, or of pain,
or whatever other shape it might assume, there went also
the inward voice of the Spirit. All which one would
affirm is that this is a drawing, not a dragging — a knock-
ing at the door, not a breaking open of the door. Hilary
has some words very much to the point here (In Ps.
cxviii. 89) : ' Vult ergo semper introire ; sed a nobis ne
introeat excluditur. Ipse quidem semper ut illuminet
promptus est ; sed lumen sibi domus ipsa obseratis aditibus
excludit. Quse si cceperit patere, illico introibit, modo
solis, qui clausis fenestras valvis introire prohibetur, paten-
tibus vero totus immittitur. Est enim Verbum Dei Sol
justitise, adsistens unicuique ut introeat, nee moratur
lucem suam repertis aditibus infundere.'
Some, wishing to deprive the Song of Songs of its
honourable place in the Canon, and to reduce it to the
level of a mere human love-poem, the idyl of an earthly
love, have affirmed that there is no single allusion to it in
the New Testament. This assertion is wholly without
warrant. In the words we have been just considering
there is an undoubted allusion to Cant. v. 2-6 ; where, in-
deed, the very language which Christ uses here, the Kpovstv
S7rl ttjv Ovpav, the summons dvolystv recurs. Nor is the
relation between the one passage and the other merely
Q
226 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [ill. 20.
superficial and verbal. On the contrary, it lies very deep.
The spiritual condition of the Bride there is in fact pre-
cisely similar to that of the Laodicean Angel here. Be-
tween sleeping and waking she has been so slow to open
the door, that when at length she does so, the Bridegroom
has withdrawn, and she has need to seek for and to follow
Him (ver. 5, 6). This exactly corresponds to the luke-
warmness of the Angel here. See the two passages brought
into closest connexion in this sense by Jerome, Ep. xviii.
ad Eustochium. Another proof of the connexion be-
tween them is this, — that although there has been no
mention of anything but a knocking here, Christ goes on
to say, ' If any man hear my voice.'' What can this be
but an allusion to the words in the Canticle which have
just gone before, * It is the voice of my beloved that knock-
eth, saying, Open to me, my sister'? In the face of this,
and much more of the same kind which might be adduced,
Ewald asserts, ' Cantico nunquam utuntur scriptores Novi
Testamenti ;' and rather than look there for this ' Behold,
I stand at the door and knock,'' he prefers to find allu-
sion here to Peter's standing and knocking at the door of
Mary's house after he was released from prison by the
Angel (Acts xii. 13, 14)! We need not go far before we
find further evidence of the intimate relation between
these words of Christ and those of the Bridegroom in that
Book. We trace it in the words which almost immediately
follow: ' and ivill sup ivith him, and he with Me.' There
may possibly be in these a more immediate reference to
Luke xii. 36 ; but that to the Song of Songs, because it
lies deeper, must not therefore be overlooked. There too
the mutual feasting of Christ with the soul which opens
to Him, and of the soul with Him, is all set forth. There
too the bride prepares a feast for her Beloved : ' Let my
III. 21.] LAODICEA, REV. III. 1^.-22. 227
Beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits '
(iv. 16); but He had first prepared one for her : 'I sat
down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit
was sweet to my taste ' (ii. 3). Few, I suppose, would be
disposed to deny a mystical significance to that meal after
the Eesurrection on the shores of the Sea of Tiberias, re-
corded with so much emphasis by the beloved disciple
(John xxi. 9-13) ; which wonderfully fulfils the same con-
ditions, being made up of what the disciples bring and
what Christ brings. This mutual feasting of Christ with
his people, and of his people with Him, finds in this pre-
sent life its culminating fulfilment in the Holy Eucharist ;
which yet is but an initial fulfilment ; it will only find its
exhaustive accomplishment in the marriage supper of the
Lamb (Kev. xix. 7-9; Mark xiv. 25).
Ver. 21. * To him that overcometh ivill I grant to sit
with Me in my throne? — A magnificent variation of Christ's
words spoken in the days of his flesh : ' The glory which
Thou gavest Me, I have given them. . . . Father, I will
that they also whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me
where I am ' (John xvii. 22, 24) ; as also of the words of
St. Paul, i If we suffer with Him, we shall also reign with
Him' (2 Tim. ii. 12). Wonderful indeed is this promise,
which, being the last and the crowning, is also the highest
and most glorious of all. Step by step they have advanced,
till a height is reached than which no higher can be con-
ceived. It seemed much to promise the Apostles them-
selves that they should sit on thrones, judging the twelve
tribes of Israel (Matt. xix. 28) ; but here is promised to
every believer something more than was there promised to
the elect Twelve. And more wonderful still, if we con-
sider to whom this promise is here addressed. He whom
Christ threatened just now to reject with loathing out of
Q 2
228 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [ill. 21.
his mouth, is offered a place with Him on his throne.
But indeed so it is ; the highest place is within reach of
the lowest ; the faintest spark of grace may be fanned into
the mightiest flame of divine love. It will be observed
that the image h£*e is not that of sitting upon seats on
the right hand or on the left of Christ's throne ( I Kin. ii.
19), but of sharing that throne itself. To understand this,
we must keep in mind the fact, that the Eastern throne is
much ampler and broader than ours ; rather a sofa than a
chair ; so that there would be room upon it for other
persons, besides him who occupied as of right the central
position there (Matt. xx. 21). Witsius : ' Erudite obser-
vavit Ludovicus de Dieu thronum regis apud orientales
amplum et latum esse, lecticse instar, fulcris aliquantulum
supra terram evectum, ac tapetibus ornatum, adeo ut
prseter sedem regi propriam, alii quoque quos honore
afficere cupit rex, in eodem throno sedes habere queant.'
' Even as I also overcame, and am set doivn with my
Father in his throne.'' — The Son is o-uvdpovos with the
Father (Wisd. ix. 4; cf. Rev. xxii. I, 'the throne of God and
the Lamb ') ; as the early Church writers loved to express
it, with a word employed already in the heathen mytho-
logy, perhaps borrowed from it (see Suicer, Thes. s. v.) ;
his faithful people shall be irdpshpot with Him. These
words, * / overcame, remind us of other words spoken by
the Lord while as yet He had not so visibly overcome as
now : * Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world '
(John xvi. 33) ; and the manner in which the overcoming
of the world and the sitting down with his Father in his
throne are brought together here, puts this passage in
close connexion with Phil. ii. 9 : s Wherefore (rod also
hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is
above every name;' cf. Heb. i. 3. — On this * my throne?
III. 22.J LAODICEA, EEV. III. 1^.-22. 229
and ' my Father's throne,' Mede says well ( Works, p.
905) : * Here are two thrones mentioned. My throne, saith
Christ ; this is the condition of glorified saints who sit with
Christ in his throne ; but my Father's {i.e. God's) throne
is the power of Divine majesty ; on this throne none
may sit but God, and the God-man Jesus Christ. To be
installed in God's throne, to sit at God's right hand, is
to have a god-like royalty, such as his Father hath, a
royalty altogether incommunicable , whereof no creature
is capable.'
Ver. 22. * He that hath an ear, let him hear what the
Spirit saith unto the Churches.' — Compare ii. 7.
A few words in conclusion upon the order in which the
promises of the seven Epistles succeed one another. It is
impossible not to acknowledge such an order here, — an
order parallel to that of the unfolding of the kingdom of
God from its first beginnings on earth to its glorious con-
summation in heaven. Thus the promise of Christ to the
faithful at Ephesus is, * To him that overcometh will I give
to eat of the tree of life which is in the Paradise of my
God ' (ii. 7) ; thus taking us back to Genesis i. ii. But sin
presently entered into Paradise, and death, the seal and
witness of sin (Gen. iii. 19); while yet for the faithful
at Smyrna,— and the promise that is good for them is
good for the faithful everywhere, — this curse of death is
lightened. It shall be to them but the gate of immorta-
lity, for ' he that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second
death ' (ii. 11). The next promise, that to the faithful at
Pergamum, brings us to the Mosaic period, to the Church
in the wilderness : ' To him that overcometh will I give to
eat of the hidden manna' (ii. 17); and if the interpre-
tation of the ' white stone ' which has been ventured here
230 EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. [ill. 22.
is the right one, that promise will also fall in perfectly
with the wilderness period and the institution of the high-
priesthood, which at that period found place. In the
fourth, that namely to Thyatira, we have reached the full
and final consummation, in type and prophetic outline,
of the kingdom, the period of David and Solomon, — the
triumph over the nations, the Church sharing in the royal-
ties of her King (ii. 26, 27). Every reader will recognize
this as a characteristic feature of those reigns (2 Sam. viii.
I-13 ; x. 19 ; xii. 29, 30; I Chron. xvii. I— 13).
Here there is a pause ; and with this consummation
reached, than which in type and prophecy there can be
nothing higher, a new series begins ; the heptad falling, as
is so constantly the case, into two groups ; either of three
and four, as in the Lord's Prayer, or of four and three, as
in the parables of Mt. xiii., and as here. And now the
scenery, if I may use the word, shifts and changes ; it is
not any longer of earth, but of heaven. The kingdom,
not of David, but of David's greater Son, has come ; all
his foes are under his feet ; his Church is not any longer
contemplated as militant, but triumphant ; and in the suc-
cession of the three concluding promises we learn that
even for the Church triumphant there are steps and ad-
vances from glory to glory. Thus, in the promise addressed
to the Angel of Sardis, we have the blessings of the judg-
ment-day, the name found written in the book of life,
Christ's confession of his own before his Father, the vesture
of light and immortality, in other words, the glorified body
which it shall be then given to the saints to wear (iii. 5).
This, however, is a personal, a solitary benefit, belonging
to each of them alone ; not so the next. In the promise
made to the faithful at Philadelphia, it is declared that as
many as overcome shall have right to enter by the gates
III. 22.] LAODICEA, REV. III. 1^-22. 231
into the heavenly City, where City and Temple are one,
shall be themselves avouched members of that heavenly
TToXirsia, and shall have their place in it for evermore
(iii. 12). And then, it having thus been declared what
they have in themselves, namely, the glorified body, and
what they have in and with the company of the redeemed,
the citizenship of the heavenly Jerusalem, it is, last of all,
in the concluding words to the Angel of Laodicea, declared
what they possess with Grod and with Christ ; that it shall
be granted to them to sit down with Christ on his throne,
as He has sat down with his Father in his Father's throne
(iii. 21). There can be nothing behind and beyond this ;
and with this therefore is the close ; in Herder's words,
' Die Kranze werden immer holier und schoner ; hier hdngt
der hochste und schonste.' It is here, to compare divine
things with human, as in the Paracliso of Dante. There,
too, there are different circles of light around the throne,
each, as it is nearer to the throne, of an intenser bright-
ness than that beyond it and more remote, till at last,
when all the others have been passed, the throne itself is
reached, and the very Presence of Him who sits upon the
throne, and from whom all this light and all this glory
flows.1
1 Tertullian gathers up the promises in a few pregnant words
(Scorp. 12) : 'Victori cuique promittit nunc arborem vitse, et mortis
veniam secundse ; nunc latens manna cum calculo candido et nomine
ignoto ; nunc ferreas virgse potestatem et stellse matutinae claritatem ;
nunc albam vestiri, nee deleri de libro vita?, et column am fieri in Dei
templo in nomine Dei et Domini, et Jerusalem cselestis inscripta, nunc
residere cum Domino in throno ejus, quod aliquando Zebedcei filiis
negabatur' (Mt. xx. 23).
EXCUESUS
ON THE HISTOKICO-PKOPHETICAL INTEKPEETATION OF
THE EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA.
' Mali moris est sensum in S. Scripturam inferre, non efferre.'
The large space which any adequate treatment of the
historico-prophetical interpretation of these Epistles would
demand has made it necessary to withdraw the considera-
tion of this subject from the Exposition itself; and I have
therefore reserved this for an Excursus at the end of the
volume, which I proceed to devote to it alone.
It is, doubtless, familiar to as many as have at all
studied the history of the exposition of these seven
Epistles, that a large body of interpreters, several of these
distinguished for their piety and their learning, have not
been content to take them merely for what they seem to
announce themselves to be, namely, seven ' words ' of
instruction, warning, consolation, addressed by the great
ascended Shepherd and Bishop of souls to seven Churches
of Asia ; but have loudly proclaimed that these Epistles
have a much wider outlook than this, that they contain
far deeper mysteries than any which such an estimate
of them as this would imply. Those who affirm this, have
doubtless a full right to be heard. In the Scripture are
such depths of meaning, so much remains to be discovered
in them, in addition to all which has already been dis-
covered, their wealth is so inexhaustible, that any one,
EXCUKSUS. 233
whose incapacity is not patent, may rightly claim from us
a patient and attentive hearing, when he offers to lead us
into these depths, to show us that, where we thought
there were but golden harvests, the food of all, waving
upon the surface, there are also veins of richest metal
below, the wealth of those who will be at the pains to dig
for and search out these hid treasures. And yet, at the
same time, before we admit any such discoveries of trea-
sures hid in the field of Scripture, it will be good always
to remember, that there is a temptation to make Scripture
mean more than in the intention of the Author of it, the
Holy Ghost, it does mean, as well as a temptation to make
it mean less ; and that we are bound by equally solemn
obligations not to thrust on it something of ours, as not to
subtract from it anything of its own (Eev. xxii. 18, 19);
the interpretation in excess proving often nearly, or quite,
as mischievous as that in defect ; while yet the tempta-
tions to it are not few, though it would lead us too far
from our immediate theme, if we attempted to trace them
here.
But what, it may be asked, is this wider horizon,
which, if we would meet the Divine intention, it is de-
clared to]us we should ascribe to these Epistles, and what
the deeper mysteries which they contain ? Before I at-
tempt to answer this, let me first, by way of clearing the
ground, set down those points on which all are agreed,
upon which there is no dispute ; and then secondly, that
which, if not all, yet the greater number of competent
judges would admit ; that so, this done, and these matters
of universal or general agreement separated off, we may
more clearly present to ourselves what are the precise
points on which the controversy turns.
All, then, are agreed that these seven Epistles, how-
234 ON THE HISTORICO-PROPHETICAL INTERPRETATION
ever primarily addressed to these seven Churches of Asia,
were also written for the edification of the Universal
Church ; in the same way, that is, as St. Paul's Epistle to
the Komans, or to Timothy, or St. James' to the Disper-
sion, were written with this intention. The warnings,
the incentives, the promises, the consolations, and, gene-
rally, the whole instruction in righteousness in these con-
tained, are for every one in all times, so far as they may
meet the several cases and conditions of men ; what
Christ says to those here addressed He says to all in
similar conditions. Thus far there can be no question.
* All Scripture,' and therefore this Scripture, was ' written
for our learning.'
It may fail to meet with acceptance as universal, yet
will, I suppose, be further admitted by many thoughtful
students of God's Word, probably by most who have entered
into the mystery of the heptad in Scripture (see p. 59),
that these seven Churches of Asia are not an accidental
aggregation, which might just as fitly have" been eight,
or six, or any other number. They will acknowledge, on
the contrary, a fitness in this number, and that these
seven do in some sort represent the Universal Church ; that
we have a right to contemplate them as offering to us
the leading aspects, moral and spiritual, which Churches
gathered in the name of Christ out of the world will
assume. No one, of course, affirming this, would mean
that they could be contemplated as exhaustive of these
aspects ; for the infinite depth and richness of that new
life which Christ brought into the world testifies itself
in nothing more than in this, the rich variety of forms
which this new life of his, embodying itself in the lives of
men, will assume, the very malformations themselves wit-
nessing in their own way for the fulness of this life. But
OF THE EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES. 235
though not exhaustive (for what could be this?), they give
us on a smaller scale, &>s iv tuttw, the grauder and more
recurring features of that life ; are not fragmentary, for-
tuitously strung together; but have a completeness, a
many-sidedness; being, as we may well believe, selected
on this very account ; here, perhaps, being the reason why
Philadelphia is included and Miletus passed by ; Thya-
tira, outwardly so insignificant, chosen, when one might
have beforehand far sooner expected Magnesia or Tralles.
Thus what notable contrasts do these seven offer, — a Church
face to face with danger and death (Smyrna), and a Church
at ease, settling down upon its lees (Sardis) ; a Church
with abundant means and loud profession, yet doing little
or nothing for the furtherance of the truth (Laodicea),
and a Church with little strength and small opportunities,
yet accomplishing a mighty work for Christ (Philadelphia) ;
a Church intolerant of doctrinal error, yet too much
lacking that love towards its Lord for which nothing else
is a substitute (Ephesus) ; and over against this a Church
not careful nor zealous, as it ought to be, for doctrinal
purity, but diligent in works and ministries of love
(Thyatira) ; or, to review these same Churches from
another point of view, a Church in conflict with heathen
libertinism, the sinful freedom of the flesh (Ephesus), and
a Church or Churches in conflict with Jewish superstition,
the sinful bondage of the spirit (Pergamum, Philadelphia) ;
or, for the indolence of man a more perilous case than
either, Churches with no vigorous forms of opposition to
the truth in the midst of them, to brace their energies and
to cause them, in the act of defending the imperilled
truth, to know it better and to love it more (Sardis,
Laodicea). That these Churches are more or less repre-
sentative Churches, having been selected because they are
236 ON THE HISTORICO-PROPHETICAL INTERPRETATION
so ; that they form a complex within and among them-
selves, mutually fulfilling and completing one another ;
that the great Head of the Church contemplates them for
the time being as symbolic of his Universal Church,
implying as much in that mystic seven, and giving many
other indications of the same, — this also will be accepted,
if not by all, yet by many.
But the Periodists, as they have been called, the up-
holders of what may be fitly termed the historico-pro-
phetical scheme of interpretation, are by no means satis-
fied with these admissions. They demand that we should
recognize in these Epistles very much more than this.
They affirm that we have in them, besides counsels to the
Churches named in each, a prophetic outline of seven suc-
cessive periods of the Church's history ; dividing, as they
do, into those seven portions the whole time intervening
between Christ's Ascension and his return in glory. As
in making a statement for others, above all for those from
whom one is about to dissent, it is always fairest, or, at
all events, most satisfactory, to cite their own words, I
will here quote two passages, one from Joseph Mede, an-
other from Vitringa, in which these severally set forth that
historico-prophetical scheme ; which they both favoured
and upheld ; and certainly the statement of the case could
scarcely be in discreeter or in abler hands. The modesty
with which the former propounds it is in striking con-
trast with the arrogant confidence of some others, who
were well nigh disposed to make here a new article of
faith, and the acceptance or rejection of this interpretation
a test of orthodoxy. These are Mede's words ; they occur
in one of his sermons (Works, 1672, p. 296) : ' It belongs
not much to our purpose to inquire whether those seven
Epistles concern historically and literally only the Churches
OP THE EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHUKCHES. 237
here named, or whether they were intended for types or
ages of the Church afterwards to come. It shall be suf-
ficient to say, that if we consider their number, being
seven (which is a number of revolution of times, and
therefore in this Book the seals, trumpets, and vials also
are seven) ; or if we consider the choice of the Holy
Grhost, in that He taketh neither all, no, nor the most
famous Churches then in the world, as Antioch, Alex-
andria, Home, and many other, and such, no doubt, as
had need of instruction as well as those here named ; if
these things be well considered, it will seem that these
seven Churches, besides their literal respect, were intended
(and it may be chiefly) to be as patterns and types of the
several ages of the Catholic Church from the beginning
thereof unto the end of the world ; that so these seven
Chuiches should prophetically sample unto us a sevenfold
temper and constitution of the whole Church according
to the several ages thereof, answering the pattern of the
Churches named here ; ' compare some other words of his
to the same effect, p. 905. " Vitringa (Anacrisis Apoca-
lypsios, p. 32), moving on the same lines, expresses him-
self thus : ' Omnino igitur existimo Spiritum S. sub typo
et emblemate septem Ecclesiarum Asise nobis mystice et
prophetice voluisse depingere septem variantes status
Ecclesise Christianse, quibus successive conspiceretur usque
ad adventum Domini et omnium rerum finem, phrasibus
desumptis a nominibus, conditione et attributis ipsarum
illarum Ecclesiarum Asise nobiliorum, quae ad hunc usum
et scopum sapienter adhibuit; sic tamen ut ipsse illse
Ecclesise Asianse simul in hoc speculo se ipsas videre,
suasque tarn virtutes quam vitia ex illis epistolis cogno-
scere, et quse in iis sunt admonitiones et exhortationes ad
se ipsas quoque referre et applicare possent : quippe quod
238 ON THE HISTORICO-PROPHETICAL INTERPRETATION
sum ma, suaclet jubetque ratio. Quod enim alterius rei
typum et figuram sustinebit symbolicam, ita affectum esse
oportet ut attributa subjecti analogi in ipsa, ilia re figurante
omnium primo demonstrari possint.'
I have cited these two writers of a later age ; but the
scheme itself, in one shape or another, may be traced to
a much earlier date ; though, indeed, it is very far from
being as old as some of its favourers would have us to
believe, claiming, as not seldom they do, several of the
early Fathers, as early at least as Augustine and Chryso-
stom, for the first authors and upholders of it. There is
no warrant for this. No passage has been quoted, and I
am convinced none could be quoted, bearing out this
claim of theirs. In an eager debate carried on for the
larger part of a century, the opponents of this interpreta-
tion repeatedly challenged the advocates to bring forward
a single quotation from one Father, Greek or Latin, in its
support. None such was ever produced ; so that "Witsius
has perfect right when he affirms, ' Nullibi id dicunt
[antiqui] quod viri isti eruditi volunt, quibuscum hsec
nobis instituta disputatio est ; nimirum proprie, literaliter
atque ex intentione Spiritus Sancti verbis harum Episto-
larum delineari, non quod Johannis tempore in Asia?
Ecclesiis agebatur, sed quod in universali Ecclesia septem
teinporum periodis ordine succedentibus futurum erat.
Id non liquet antiquorum ulli vel in mentem venisse.'
This quotation is from his essay, Be Septem Eccles. Apo-
calypj. Sensu Historico an Prophetico (Opp. vol. i. pp.
640-741), remarkable for the moderation of its tone and
the fairness with which all that can be said on the other
side is weighed. It is quite true that Augustine, with
others before and after him, acknowledged that symbolic
representative character of these Epistles, whereof I just
OF THE EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES. 239
now spoke. Thus Andreas, the earliest commentator on
the Apocalypse whose work has reached us, gives this as
the reason why the Lord, through St. John, addressed
Himself exactly to seven Churches ; 8ia rov s/380/jlcitikov
aptOfiov to fivaTiKOv twv airavTaj^rj skkXtjctlcov arj/Malvoov.
Augustine (De Civ. Dei, xvii. 4), explaining the Canticle
of Hannah, in which it is said, 'The barren hath born
seven' (1 Sam. ii. 5), goes on to say, ' Hie totum quod
prophetabatur eluxit agnoscentibus numerurn septenarium
quo est universa Ecclesiae significata perfectio. Propter
quod et Johannes Apostolus ad septem scribit Ecclesias,
eo modo se ostendens ad unius plenitudinem scribere ; '
or, as the last clause of a similar statement reads elsewhere
(Exp. in Gal. ii. 7): ' quae [Ecclesias] utique universalis
Ecclesise personam gerunt ; ' cf. Ep. xlix. § 2. And Gre-
gory the Great almost word for word (Moral, xvii. 27) :
' Unde et septem Ecclesiis scribit Johannes Apostolus, ut
imam Catholicam, septiformis gratiae plenam Spiritu
designaret ; ' cf. Prcef. c. 8. But to accept them as his-
torico-prophetical is quite a different matter, and of any
allowance of this there is no vestige among them; no
evidence that it had ever so much as come into their minds.
Still the notion itself undoubtedly dates back to a
period anterior to the Reformation. The Fratres Spiri-
tuales, or more rigid Franciscans, who refused the mitiga-
tions of the severity of St. Francis' rule, in which the
majority of his followers allowed themselves, and who
on this account separated themselves from their laxer
brethren, and from the Church which sanctioned such
relaxations, are the first among whom this scheme of
interpretation assumed any prominence. It is familiar to
as many as are at all acquainted with this wonderful body
of men, what an important part the distribution of the
240 ON THE HISTORICO-PROPHETICAL INTERPRETATION
Church's history into seven ages played in their theology,
and what weapons they contrived to find in this armoury
for the assault of the dominant Church and hierarchy of
Eome. Looking everywhere in Scripture for traces of
these seven times, it is not strange that they should have
found such in these seven Epistles. At the time of the
first rise of these, one but recently dead, high in reputa-
tion for sanctity throughout the Church, himself regarded
as little less of an apocalyptic seer, I mean the Abbot Joa-
chim of Floris (he died in 1202), had already shown the
way in this interpretation ; ! and the Spiritualist Brethren
did not fail to adjust the seven ages of the Church and the
seven Epistles prophetic of them, so that these should pro-
phesy all good of themselves, and all evil of Eome.
It is evident that when the scheme was adopted two
or three centuries later by theologians of the Reformed
Church, it would require readjustment and redistribution
throughout, and this at once chronological and dogmatic.
Such readjustment it was not difficult to effect. The
whole thing was a subjective fancy of men's minds, not
an objective truth of God's Word, and would therefore
oppose no serious resistance. It was easy to give it what-
ever new shape was required by the new conditions under
which it should now appear. After the Reformation, the
first in whom I meet this interpretation of the Epistles to
the seven Churches as predictive of the seven ages of the
Church and foreshadowing their condition, is an English
divine, Thomas Brightman (b. 15 57, d. 1607). I feel quite
sure that it had earlier advocates, but I have not traced it
1 For an account of Joachim of Floris' seven ages, see Hahn,
GescJi. d. Ketzer im Mittelalter, vol. iii. p. 112; Engelhardt, Kirch.
Gesch. Abhandlungen, p. 107. 'For English readers there is an excel-
lent summary of what they taught and did in Elliot's Apocalypse.
OF THE EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHUKCHES. 241
higher up. Brightman belonged to the Puritan school of
divines, as they existed within the bosom of the Anglican
Church, and though in opposition to its spirit, not as yet
visibly separated from it. At the same time his work,
Apocalypsis Apocalypseos, 1612, avouches him a man of
no ordinary gifts, and of warm and earnest piety ; so that
Marckius has perfect right when he says of it, ' eruditionem
et pietatem non vulgarem spirat.' But although he, and
Joseph Mede, as we have seen (he died in 1638), and
Henry More,1 lent to this suggestion the authority of
their names, it never seems to have struck any vigorous
root in England, nor to have awakened interest enough to
make men very earnest either in its assertion or its denial.
It was in the Eeformed Churches of Holland and Germany,
but predominantly in the former, that this periodic inter-
pretation first assumed any prominence or importance.
There indeed, during the middle and latter part of the
seventeenth century and beginning of the eighteenth, it
was debated with animation, and often with something
more than animation. The very able Prcefatio de Septem
Novi Testamenti Periodis, which Marckius has prefixed
to his Commentary on the Apocalypse, 1699, shows how
angry the disputants could be on one side and the other.
The theologian who by his adoption of the historico-
prophetical interpretation gave an importance to it, and
procured for it an acceptance, which in any other way
it would scarcely have obtained, was Cocceius (b. 1603,
d. 1669). It is indeed with him only part of a larger
whole — one among many testimonies for a divinely-
1 Prophetical Exposition of the Seven Epistles sent to the Seven
Churches in Asia from Him that is, and was, and is to come, — Theo-
logical Works, London, 1708, pp. 719-764; first published in 1669.
R
242 ON THE HISTORICO-PROPHETICAL INTERPRETATION
intended division into seven periods of the whole history of
the Church. This division found favour with many ; but
in no one does it recur with so great a frequency, exercise
so powerful an influence on his interpretation of Scripture,
constitute so vital a portion of his theology, as in him. I
am not aware whether Cocceius at any time made himself
at all felt in England ; his reputation, if it ever reached us
here, has now quite passed away ; but his influence for good
on the Protestant communities of Holland and also of Grer-
many, as a promoter of a Biblical in place of a scholastical
theology, leading as he did those Churches from the arid
wastes of a new scholasticism to the living fountains of
the Word of God, was immense, and survives to the pre-
sent hour. But this distribution of the Church's history
into periods of seven, seven before Christ's coming, and
seven after, is a sort of ' fixed idea ' with him. It is in-
deed his desire to make Scripture the rule in everything,
and to find all that concerns the spiritual life and develop-
ment of man cast in a scriptural framework, this desire
' in season and out of season,' which has led him astray.
And thus it is that he finds, or where he does not find he
makes, everywhere in Scripture a prophecy of these periods ;
in the seven days of creation, in the seven beatitudes, in
the seven petitions of the Lord's Prayer, in the seven
parables of Matthew xiii. ; not seldom forcing into artificial
arrangement by sevens, Scriptures which yield themselves
not naturally and of their own accord, but only under
violent pressure and constraint, to any articulation of the
kind, as Hannah's Prayer, the Song of Moses, of Deborah,
the Song of Songs, not a few of the Psalms, and, I dare
say, much else in Scripture besides.1
1 Let me rescue from vast unread folios of his, as not very alien
to the matter we have in hand, one noble passage, and he abounds
OF THE EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES. 243
But despite of all the excesses of his interpretation,
Cocceius never refused to these Epistles a true historical
foundation. The historico-prophetic meaning was no doubt
far the most precious in his eyes ; and it had good right
so to be, if only it had been designed by the Spirit ; but
he did not deny that there had been actual Churches at
Ephesus, Smyrna, and the rest, to which these several
Epistles were primarily addressed, and to whose moral and
spiritual condition they, at the time they were written,
fitted. Others, however, have proceeded to far more
serious lengths. They have refused to see any reference
whatever to Churches actually, at the time when this
vision was seen, subsisting in these cities of Asia, and to
their spiritual condition. These they regard merely as
the vehicles for the conveyance of the prophecy ; the seven
Epistles not in the least expressing, except, it might be,
here and there by accidental and undesigned coincidence,
the actual condition of these seven Churches. Despite of
anything which these Epistles may seem to affirm to the
contrary, the Church of Ephesus, according to their view,
may at this time have been tolerant of false teachers, and
Thyatira intolerant ; Philadelphia may have been slack in
in such, on the analogy of faith, and the help which the different
portions of Scripture mutually afford to the right understanding of
one another. It is from the Prmfatio ad Comm. in Proph. Min., Opp.
torn, v., without pagination : ' Habet enim divina institutio Scrip-
turse instar augusti palatii, in quo ordine consideant innumeri se-
niores, qui viritini admissum novum discipulum erudiant, a collegis
suis dicta confirment, roborent, explicent, illustrent, nunc fusius dicta
contrahant, nunc contractiora diffundant et diducant, generalius dicta
distinguant, distincta generatim innuant, regulas exemplis fidciant,
exempla in regulis judicent, ita ut omnium de eadem re agentium
dictorum is sensus accipi debeat, qui est ullius, et qui nulli refragetur,
et plena institutio ea demum censeri quse omnium virorum Dei sit
vox, (Tvn<fi<i>vl.a, et dfiovoia.'
k 2
244 ON THE HISTORICO-PROPHETICAL INTERPRETATION
deeds of faith and love, and Laodicea fervent in spirit, and
Sardis with not a few only, but many names, that had not
defiled their garments. No Antipas need have actually
resisted to blood at Pergamum ; there may have been no
tribulation of ten days imminent upon Smyrna.1
This extravagance may be dismissed in a few words.
Origen is justly condemned, that, advancing a step beyond
other allegorists, who slighted the facts of the Old Testa-
ment history for the sake of mystical meanings which they
believed to lie behind them, he denied, concerning many
events recorded there as historical, that they actually hap-
pened at all ; rearing the superstructure of his mystical
meaning, not on the establishment of the literal sense, but
on its ruins. Every reverent student of the Word of God
must feel that so he often lets go a substance in snatching
at a shadow, that shadow itself really eluding his grasp
after all. He who in this sense assails the strong historic
substructures of Scripture, may not know all which he is
doing ; but he is indeed doing his best, or his worst rather,
to turn the glorious superstructure built on these, which,
though resting on earth, pierces heaven, into a mere sky-
pageant painted on the air, a cloud-palace waiting to be
shifted and changed by every breath of the caprice of man,
and at length fading and melting into common air. It
was not without reason that Augustine, himself not wholly
to be acquitted of excesses in this direction, did yet urge
so strongly the necessity of maintaining, before and above
all, the historic letter of the Scripture, whatever else to
this might be superadded (Serm. ii. 6): 'Ante omnia,
tratres, hoc in nomine Domini et admonemus quantum
1 Floerke, in an able work on the Millennium, Lehre vom tausend-
jahrigen Reiche, Marburg, 1859, is the latest denier in toto of an his-
torical element in these Epistles ; see p. 59, sqq.
OF THE EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES. 245
possumus et praecipimus, ut quando auditis exponi sacra-
mentum Scripturas narrantis quae gesta sunt, priiis illud
quod lectum est credatur sic gestum quomodo lectum est,
ne subtracto fundamento rei gestae, quasi in aere quseratis
aedificare.' Similar warnings in his writings continually
recur. Who indeed could remain confident that anything
presented in Scripture as history, with all apparent notes
of history about it, was yet history at all, and not some-
thing wholly different, — parable, or allegory, or prophecy,
— if these Epistles, which St. John is bidden to send to
the seven Churches in Asia, which profess to enter minutely
into their spiritual condition, were yet never sent to them
at all, had no relation whatever to them, no more, I mean,
than to any other portion of the universal Church ?
But leaving these, and addressing ourselves only to the
more moderate upholders of the periodic scheme of inter-
pretation, to those, namely, who admit a literal and pre-
sent sense, while they superinduce upon it a prophetical
and future, we ask, what slightest hint or intimation does
the Spirit of God give that we have here to do with the
great successive acts and epochs of the kingdom of God
in the course of its gradual evolution here upon earth ?
Where are the finger-posts pointing this way ? What is
there, for instance, of chronological succession ? Does not
everything, on the contrary, indicate simultaneity, and not
succession ? The seven candlesticks are seen at the same
instant ; the seven Churches named in the same breath.
How different is it where succession in time is really
intended ; how impossible then not to perceive it ; see,
for instance, Dan. ii. 32, 33, 39, 40 ; vii. 6, 7, 9. On this
matter Marckius says very well (Prcef. § 52) : ' Attamen
ut Ecclesias has agnoscamus pro typicis, sive significanti-
bus ex Dei intentione alias Ecclesias aliorum locorum et
246 ON THE HISTORICO-PROPHETICAL INTERPRETATION
temporum, oportet nos a Deo doceri. Typos enim, non
magis quam allegorias, pro lubitu nostro in Scripturam
inferre licet, cum non sit ISias sirikvaecos, propriae inter-
pretationis, 2 Pet. i. 20. Non sufficit ad typum consti-
tuendum nuda convenientia, quae inter res, personas, et
eventus plurimos a nobis observari potest, sed oportet nobis
amplius constet de divino'consilio quo rem similem servire
voluerit alteri praesignificandae, cogitationibusque nostris
illuc ducendis.'
But all such objections, with all those others which it
would only be too easy to make, might indeed be set aside
or overborne, if any marvellous coincidence between these
Epistles and the after course of the Church's development
could be made out ; if history set its seal to these, and
attested that they were prophecy indeed ; for when a key
fits perfectly well the wards of a very complicated lock,
and opens it without an effort, it is difficult not to believe
that they were made for one another. But there is no
such accurate correspondence here ; as is abundantly tes-
tified by the fact that the interpreters of the historico-
prophetical school, besides their controversy with those
who deny in toto what they affirm, have also an intestine
strife among themselves. Each one has his own solution
of the enigma, his own distribution of the several epochs ;
or, if this is too much to affirm, there is, at any rate,
nothing approaching to a general consensus among them.
Take, for instance, the distribution of Vitringa. For him
Ephesus represents the condition of the Church from the
day of Pentecost to the outbreak of the Decian persecu-
tion ; Smyrna, from the Decian persecution to that of
Diocletian, both inclusive ; Pergamum, from the time of
Constantine until the close of the seventh century ; Thya-
tira, the Church in its mission to the nations during the
OF THE EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES. 247
first half of the Middle Ages ; Sardis, from the close of
the twelfth century to the Eeformation ; Philadelphia, the
first century of the Eeformation ; Laodicea, the Keformed
Church at the time when he was writing. Lange, Das
Apostolische Zeitalter, vol. ii. p. 472, has a nearly similar
distribution.
There are two or three fortunate coincidences here be-
tween the assumed prophecy and the fact ; without such
indeed the whole notion must have been abandoned long
ago as hopeless ; such coincidences could scarcely have
been avoided. Smyrna, for instance, represents excel-
lently well the Ecclesia pressa in its two last and most
terrible struggles with heathen Eome ; so too for such
Protestant expositors as see the Papacy in the scarlet
woman of Babylon, the Jezebel of Thyatira appears exactly
at the right time, coincides with the Papacy at its height,
yet at the same time with judgment at the door in the
great revolt which was even then preparing. But I would
ask any one fairly grounded in the subject whether there
is any true articulation of Church history in the distri-
bution above made ? any general felicity of correspondence
between what are averred to be the prophetic outlines and
the historic realities adduced as fulfilling them ? Take,
for instance, Philadelphia, as representing the Eeformation
period. The praise bestowed on the Philadelphian Angel
may be said to culminate in these words, ' Behold, I have
set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it '
(iii. 8). Was this the fact ? Can anything, on the con-
trary, have been more mournful than the way in which,
when * an open door ' was set before the Eeformers, they
suffered it to so great an extent to be closed on them
again ? There was a time, some five and twenty or thirty
years after Luther had begun to preach, when Austria
248 ON THE HISTdRICO-PROPHETICAL INTERPRETATION
and Bavaria and Styria and Poland, and, in good part,
France, had all been won for the Eeformation. Thirty
years more had not elapsed when they all were lost again ;
and it was confined within the far narrower limits which
it occupies at the present day (see Eanke, History of the
Popes in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries) — this
door, once open, having been closed mainly through the
guilt of those contests, very far from Philadelphian (for
the names too have been pressed into service), among the
Reformers themselves.
Then, again, other interpreters, as I have already ob-
served, distribute the epochs according to schemes alto-
gether diverse from this. Thus it is far more common
among the Protestant theologians of the seventeenth cen-
tury to apportion, not five Churches, but only the first four,
to the pre-Reformation period ; to claim, as Brightman
does, Philadelphia, with all its graces, for themselves, and,
as must necessarily follow, to contemplate Sardis as repre-
senting the Church of the actual Reformation. Certainly
the Reformation had blots and blemishes enough ; but its
faults were those of zeal and passion ; they had nothing in
common with that hypocritical form of godliness, that
death under shows of life, imputed to Sardis ; and any
dutiful child of the Reformation, who at all felt the im-
mense debt of gratitude which he and the whole Church
owed to it, notwithstanding all its excesses and all its short-
comings, might reasonably hesitate long as to the accuracy
of a scheme which should brand it with this dishonour.
See Marckius, Prcef. §55; and on the other hand as say-
ing, and saying well, whatever there is to be said in support
of the historico-prophetical school in this particular aspect,
see Henry More, at p. 756 sqq., in his treatise already
referred to.
OF THE EPISTLES TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES. 249
Much more might be urged on the arbitrary artificial
character of all the attempted adaptations of Church his-
tory to these Epistles ; but this Essay has already run to
a greater length than I intended ; and indeed it is not
needful to say more. Where there were no preestablished
harmonies in the Divine intention between the one and the
other, as I am persuaded that here there were none, it could
not have been otherwise. The multitude of dissertations,
essays, books, which have been, and are still being written,
in support of this scheme of interpretation, must remain
a singular monument of wasted ingenuity and misapplied
toil ; and, in their entire failure to prove their point, of
the disappointment which must result from a futile looking
into Scripture for that which is not to be found there, —
from an attempt to draw out from it that which he who
draws out must first himself have put in. Men will never
in this way make Scripture richer. They will have made
it much poorer for themselves, if they nourish themselves
from it with the fancies of men, their own fancies or those
of others, instead of with the truths of God.
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REGAN PAUL, TRENCH, & CO., London.
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